DEPTH: A METHODOLOGY FOR USABILITY EVALUATION OF WEB SITES BASED ON DESIGN PATTERNS AND HEURISTICS CRITERIA

摘要

This paper presents DEPTH (usability evaluation based on DEsign PaTterns & Heuristics criteria) a methodology for performing scenario-based heuristic usability evaluation of Web sites It is comprised of two operational phases, the preparatory and the execution phase, where specific steps are performed for evaluating the usability along three axes: usability comparison tests among similar Web sites, expert/heuristic evaluation, scenario-based user inspection/enquiry sessions DEPTH'S innovation lies on the use of usability design patterns both as a mean for identifying best practices of usability design as well as for specifying the scenarios and tasks for user inspection It is also a method for capturing, adapting and refining usability resources of a Web site DEPTH is also supported by a CASE tool whose functionality is described Finally, we present a small example demonstrating the basic steps of DEPTH.