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The purpose of this paper is to discuss heuristic evaluation as a method for evaluating e‐learning courses and applications and more specifically to investigate the applicability and empirical use of two customized e‐learning heuristic protocols.

Two representative e‐learning heuristic protocols were chosen for the comparative analysis. These protocols augment the “traditional” heuristic sets so as to cover technology‐enhanced learning properties. Two reviewers that have considerable experience in usability evaluation as well as in e‐learning were involved in this comparative analysis. Coverage, distribution and redundancy were employed as three basic criteria for conducting the evaluation

The main results of the study indicate that both heuristic protocols exhibit wide coverage of potential usability problems. The distribution of usability problems is uneven to a large number of heuristics for both heuristic sets, which reveals that some heuristics are more general than others.

This study shows the empirical application of two heuristic protocols in a usability evaluation of e‐learning applications. Furthermore, it provides a comparison of the two heuristic sets according to a set of criteria and provides a first set of suggestions regarding further development and validation of these heuristic sets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodological usability evaluation approach for e‐commerce websites in developing countries.

A multi‐faceted usability evaluation of three Jordanian e‐commerce websites was used, where three usability methods (user testing, heuristic evaluation and web analytics) were applied to the sites.

A four‐step approach was developed to facilitate the evaluation of e‐commerce sites, mindful of the advantages and disadvantages of the methods used in identifying specific usability problems.

The approach was developed and tested using Jordanian users, experts and e‐commerce sites. The study compared the ability of the methods to detect problems that were present, however, usability issues not present on any of the sites could not be considered when creating the approach.

The approach helps e‐commerce retailers evaluate the usability of their websites and understand which usability method(s) best matches their need.

This research proposes a new approach for evaluating the usability of e‐commerce sites. A novel aspect is the use of web analytics (Google Analytics software) as a component in the usability evaluation in conjunction with heuristics and user testing.

The purpose of this research is to compare the results of two different usability techniques in evaluating the Web of Science interface.

At first three human factors experts conducted a heuristic evaluation with the interface. Then, usability testing was conducted with 22 students recruited from various departments at Loughborough University, UK.

A comparison of these techniques showed that heuristic evaluation revealed qualitative information whereas usability testing uncovered mostly quantitative data about usability of the interface. Although heuristic evaluation found more problems than usability testing, it also identified complementary information.

This paper recommends applying multiple usability techniques to ensure comprehensiveness in evaluating IR interfaces.

This paper shows that using multiple usability techniques resulted in a high degree of comprehensiveness in evaluating IR user interfaces.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of the National Library of Turkey website developed for all citizens in the country to retrieve information available in a wide range of areas.

The evaluation performed by 57 undergraduate university students involved the identification and analysis of usability problems in the selected website. The assessment process was mainly based on Nielsen’s Heuristics. The data obtained in the evaluation process were enriched using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to conduct a more detailed analysis.

The participants identified many usability problems concerning the evaluated website and considered it as having low usability characteristics. The most violated heuristic item was found to be “consistency and standards” whereas the least violated heuristic item was “match between system and the real world.” The total number of the usability problems in heuristic evaluation correlated significantly and negatively with the SUS and the NPS results indicating that the more participants identified usability problems, the less they considered the website as usable and recommendable.

The participants were not usability experts, however they were selected from among the students who received the Human Computer Interaction course to ensure that they had sufficient information and experience concerning the evaluation of a website with heuristics. Besides, the study was limited to a small number of university students. The implication is that results of this study have potential to guide libraries, which plan to adapt themselves to the digital world by delivering web services, by addressing critical points influencing users’ points of views toward library websites and their usability evaluation result.

Depending on the changes in user habits regarding the retrieval of information, libraries have made considerable investments in web technologies to meet their users’ demands, and recently, digital libraries have begun to take over physical libraries. Users always need to perform tasks efficiently, effectively and satisfactorily when using websites. As one of the most crucial sources of digital materials, library websites are expected to have usable characteristics that satisfactorily meet user requirements. Therefore, the practical implication is that the findings of the study will guide designers, developers and practitioners in the development of library websites.

In the context of usability evaluation of digital libraries, this is the first study to analyze effects of usability problems identified by users during the heuristic inspection on their overall evaluation score and willingness to recommend the website to their friends or colleagues.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated list of heuristics and an information architecture (IA) framework for the heuristic evaluation of the IA of academic library websites as well as an evaluation framework with practical steps on how to conduct the evaluation.

A set of 14 heuristics resulted from an integration of existing usability principles from authorities in the field of usability. A review of IA literature resulted in a framework for dividing academic library websites into six dialogue elements. The resulting heuristics were made applicable to academic library websites through the addition of recommendations based on a review of 20 related studies.

This study provides heuristics, a framework and workflow guidelines that can be used by the various evaluators of academic library websites, i.e. library staff, web developers and usability experts, to provide recommendations for improving its usability.

The focus of the usability principles is the evaluation of the IA aspects of websites and therefore does not provide insights into accessibility or visual design aspects.

The main problem that is addressed by this study is that there are no clear guidelines on how to apply existing usability principles for the evaluation of the IA of academic library websites.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the heuristic evaluations of five e-dictionaries according to the criteria developed by Ball and Bothma (2018). E-dictionaries are increasingly making use of modern information technology to create advanced information tools. It is necessary to ensure that these new products are still usable. Heuristic evaluation is a usability evaluation method used to evaluate the usability of a product.

Five e-dictionaries were evaluated through heuristic evaluation. This method requires an evaluator to evaluate a product by using a set of criteria or guidelines.

Various usability issues, as well as good features of e-dictionaries, could be identified through these evaluations, and are discussed under the categories of content, information architecture, navigation, access (searching and browsing), help, customisation and use of other innovative technologies.

Through the evaluations in this study, the criteria could be validated and an example of how the criteria can be used to evaluate e-dictionaries could be presented.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usability of the recently developed IREON – International Relations and Area Studies Gateway – with the aid of an anthropological motivated research design. Within such an approach, the work environment and subject experiences of the test subjects become a crucial part of the observation.

The objectives are achieved by contextualisation of the digital library under examination. Furthermore, previous evaluation models of digital libraries are discussed from an anthropological point of view. As a result, a multi‐method approach that is context‐relative and self‐reflexive is applied to assess the usability of IREON.

The structural and cultural complexity of people involved in the development, operation and usage of IREON justifies a multi‐method approach. Whereas information specialists and web designers tend to focus on different kind of problems, there is a high degree of common discoverability between political science students and researchers.

Because of the contingent nature of digital library usage, evaluation methods and findings have to be always reassessed.

Anthropologically motivated usability evaluations are an inexpensive but efficient way to improve design activities.

This paper provides librarians with basic knowledge of anthropological methods to evaluate digital library services.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated fuzzy approach to determine important universal usability problems (UUPs) by providing experts who behave like real users and to establish a work plan to correct the most important ones.

In this study, a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approach with three stages is proposed for the evaluation of universal usability. At the first stage, UUPs are identified by performing modified heuristic evaluation, and severity rating of each problem is determined by experts. At the second stage, critical problems are specified by applying the fuzzy Delphi considering these severity ratings. At the third stage, Fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory approach is applied to prioritize critical problems as sub and main criteria. An illustrative example related to emergency service is performed to apply the proposed approach.

Results showed that the elevator button design, the elevator emergency button design and the position of the floor signboard are the first three problems that should be primarily improved as sub-criteria. In terms of main criteria, equitable use, simple and intuitive use, and perceptible information are the first three main criteria that should be improve in emergency service.

This study is original in terms of methodology and providing a new perspective for building design evaluation. The results can help the designers to see the UUPs in buildings, to focus the most important UUPs and to establish improvement ranking. These advantages provide time and cost-effective design improvement actions.

By adopting retrospective evaluation theories, this study aims to explain how innovations provided by separate suppliers in the tourism value chain influence tourist’s perceived value of the overall experience and further uncover which innovative product attributes are more effective in improving tourist perceptions of the overall value.

A survey yielded 584 valid responses from tourists who had experienced specific tourist product innovations during their travels. Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed theoretical model.

The results reveal that tourists evaluate overall travelling experience value either by recalling an intense, impressive moment (i.e. a heuristic approach) or through an evaluation of the overall utility gained from the whole trip (i.e. a normative approach). Furthermore, innovations that are perceived as increasing convenience and enabling learning contribute to tourists’ overall value perception through both normative and heuristic approaches, while immersion resulting from innovation only contributes to overall perceived value through the heuristic approach.

Given the complex service ecosystem of tourism destinations, each tourism service provider should consider how innovations contribute to the experience of the whole trip and which attributes of innovations increase tourists’ overall perceived experience value.

This study complements existing knowledge by revealing the relationship between product innovation in tourism sectors and tourists’ perceived value of the whole trip. Moreover, it offers a theoretical framework for further investigation into service product innovation in hospitality and tourism industry.

The purpose of this article is to review the research on human‐computer interfaces for library‐based commercial online information retrieval (IR) systems.

The review first focuses on basic interface issues for information retrieval such as interface style, end‐user searching, query formulation, relevance feedback and browsing. The second part deals with cognitive engineering in IR including mental models and individual differences. Finally, the topics on user interface engineering are covered. These include user interface guidelines, usability evaluation methods and interface engineering techniques.

The review shows that user interface design has received a limited attention from IR researchers. There is a need for adopting human‐computer interaction (HCI) techniques into IR interface designs, but this issue has not yet been fully recognised by the commercial database vendors and distributors. The paper recommends that applying HCI techniques could help in developing more usable IR interfaces.

The review identifies the main activities of a user‐centred design methodology and suggests that IR interface designers should use this method in future. This could have major implications in IR interface design for end‐user searching.

The review is the first to offer an overview of empirical research on IR interface design and IR usability engineering. Both IR researchers and practitioners may benefit from the description of previous research and the user‐centred design advocated by the current research.