Definition:
When a heuristic analysis is performed, the researcher acts as a user of the website and his goal is to complete a series of predetermined tasks related to the existence of said website. This can be, for example, trying to find and order a product, find out the status of an order, look for the solution to an error code or decide which products to buy.
Advantages of heuristic analysis
Cheap and fast, heuristic analyses are the best to identify where a web page fails versus the customer experience on the site. They can be very beneficial if you have not yet carried out the usability tests or when you want to do a quick review of prototypes. The goal of these is very simple: try to identify the weaknesses of the page that affect the user experience when completing tasks within the website.
How to perform a heuristic analysis
- Determine what are the tasks that potential customers are going to perform on the website you want to study. Some of these tasks can be: find information about which are the best-selling products on the web, place an order and pay for it (observing what payment methods it offers), contact the technical service or choose the desired product through a profile.
- Try to establish successful comparisons for each task. For example, determine what is the success rate to place an order and pay for it, which could be 96%.
- Perform each task as if you were just one more client of the web, noting the incidents that arise, such as that the page takes time to load or the number of steps that must be performed.
- Write down where the website fails or does not follow the guidelines imposed in its creation.
- Make a report with the data obtained and analyze it to improve the web.