Heuristic usability evaluationBY SOKTEANG NGOV

Application: Facebook

Visibility of system status:

The visibility of the system status is really good. For example,

when there is a network connection problems, it shows “No

Internet Connection” on the top of the feeds when the users slide

down to refresh the top feeds. This way, the users know what is

going on, and what to do next.

Match between system and the real world:

We can also say that the system use a lot of short and easy-to-

understand words, like “People you may know”, “Messages”,

“Share”, and “Search”. In a status, Facebook puts the information

in logical order. For instance, David with Julie & Danny at Zaman

University, along with the description of what we want to say, like

“Is having android class”.

User control and freedom:

When we post a status, Facebook allows us to tag other friends,

location of where we are at, plus our emotions or the activity we

are doing into just one status. The users can change the privacy

of the status, photos for who can see the photos. Also, users can

edit delete the status of their own as well.

Consistency and standards:

I think the words and actions are quite consistent, and it does not

have the same words that mean the same thing. Although, if we

use Facebook for the first time, some words are new and it take a

bit time to learn those words and how to use all features in

Facebook.

Error prevention:

Personally, I do not use a lot of error prevention but when users

try to do something like deactivate their account that Facebook

try to warn the users many times before they decided to commit

the action.

Recognition rather than recall:

It does not require users to use a lot of memory to remember

thing. There are search features to find things. However,

sometimes, when I try to load what I posted since 2010, it might

consume more time to scroll down and load all the histories to

see what I wanted.

Flexibility and efficiency of use:

There are many groups that I have joined and created. So

Facebook makes it easy for the users by putting the most-

frequent-used group on the top, so that when I try to access to

those groups, it takes me less time. Moreover, when I click on the

News Feed button on the top of the screen (android), it will

refresh and update news feed for me without scrolling the screen

down the page anymore.

Aesthetic and minimalist design:

There are 3 features that users might use very often, those

include News Feed, Messages, and Notifications. All information

in those 3 features are needed and are the main reasons why we

use Facebook. Other information that are not often used or

irrelevant is hidden or can be hidden.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors:

Similar to what I had mentioned above, the error message is

shown in a normal language (not code), for example, “You can

still post while offline”, “Connection Lost”, “Tap to Retry”. There

are actually some sign putting along with the error messages.

Help and documentation:

There are online document and help where users can actually

access when they need. The help is categorized into separate

topic. Some are “Join Facebook”, Login & Password”. It uses

keywords that users can easily understand and know where to go

into. Users can ask questions while there are most-asked

question asked by Facebook users. Most answers provide solution

to users’ questions.

Thank you