During the MarCom’09 event in the RAI in Amsterdam, eight Expert Reviews were given away by User Intelligence. Several methods can be used to evaluate how well a product fulfils the business and user goals. Usually we conduct a Usability Test for this type of evaluation, but in some situations an Expert Review can be more appropriate.
What is an Expert Review?
An Expert Review is a systematic inspection of this interface and is typically carried out by two or three user interface experts. These experts use the system in a similar way as the target audience. During the use of the interface, they look for violations of recognized usability principles. The issues found are clearly described, the severity is indicated and possible solutions are proposed.
When is an Expert Review appropriate?
Let us be clear about one thing: in most situations it is much better to evaluate a user interface by conducting a Usability Test. Even the best trained experts cannot substitute a Usability Test with actual users! So in what situations would an Expert Review actually be preferred?
- Extreme time pressure: All what is needed for an Expert Review is the user interface and descriptions of the target audience and the business goals to get started. Then a good expert review can be delivered in 3 days.
- Lack of budget: in a relatively short period of time an Expert Review can produce an overview with the most important issues and where possible proposed solutions are given. No recruitment of users is needed, which saves a lot of costs.
- No or not enough participants available: sometimes, due to budget or specific user group requirements, it can be difficult to find (enough) participants to do a test with. In such a case an Expert Review with user interface experts is an ideal solution to have the user interface analyzed with typical user tasks and get insight on issues and possible solutions.
- Partly developed prototype: during the development of a product, feedback from user interface experts can give valuable insights on issues and help to steer the development in the right way. User interface experts can be more flexible than test participants in this process and can be asked for their expertise multiple times during the various stages of the development process.
- Very broad interface: when an interface offers many different options and possibilities for the user, a user interface expert can ‘clean up’ the interface of obvious mistakes. This gives the advantage of having quick wins from the Expert Review. When more budget and time is available, an additional Usability Test could be used to find less obvious and more complex problems with the actual users.
When is an Expert Review not appropriate?
- When time and budget allows having enough actual users for a Usability Test their feedback and behavior will give valuable insights that allow improvements on both obvious problems as more complex problems.
- When the user interface is used with very specific domain knowledge it might be too difficult and cumbersome for the user interface experts to find out the tasks of the actual users. In that case, testing with the actual users is more efficient than doing an Expert Review.
Even better than an Expert Review or Usability Test?
Combining several methods is better than using a single method. For example, an Expert Review can be easily combined with Web Analytics. And if budget allows you, the combination of an Expert Review, Web Analytics and a Usability Test is even more powerful! See also a presentation we gave recently on this topic .
Interested in an Expert Review or other services? Contact us for more information