Today I’m going to introduce you to a peer-reviewed journal paper that shows us how to use heuristic evaluation and questionnaire to conduct usability evaluation on SocialNet, a private social media on mental Health for traveling. I am very interested in this paper, mainly because I am a user of social media APP, and I am very interested in how social media can be combined with the medical field and help doctors and patients to improve efficiency.
Usability is one of the most important criteria that a software product must meet. Usability is defined as the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use [1].
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability of SocialNet，a private social network for monitoring the daily progress of patients by their relatives[2]，using a usability evaluate method: observation and questionnaire. A heuristic assessment conducted by an expert evaluator identified issues related to consistency, design, and privacy. Using observation technique and questionnaire survey method, 20 users and 1 reviewer were tested.The main usability problems were found to be related to the structure of SocialNet, and the users presented some difficulties in locating the buttons or links,according to the testing result. The results show a high level of usability and satisfaction with the product [2]. This results help SocialNet identify existing usability issues and find ways to improve its usability goals.
Through this study, we have learned that using A heuristic evaluation and observation and questionnaire technique is an effective way to study the usability. Because actual users participate in the evaluation and give us their most authentic thoughts and feelings. Through the analysis of the data, we can determine the direction of optimization.
The following are the results of the data analysis and the questionnaire.
References：
1. (2010). Ergonomics of human-system interaction — part 210: human-centred design for interactive systems.
2. Toribio-Guzmán, J., García-Holgado, A., Soto Pérez, F., García-Peñalvo, F., & Franco Martín, M. (2017). Usability Evaluation of a Private Social Network on Mental Health for Relatives. Journal of Medical Systems, 41(9), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0780-x
