Re: Heuristic evaluation of documentation?

[Dawn Whitlock <dawn -dot- whitlock -at- tait -dot- co -dot- nz>]

The key word here is "usability".

Heuristic evaluation is the most popular of the usability inspection methods. It is
considered a ?discount? usability method because it is cheap and effective. In
heuristic evaluation, evaluators inspect the documentation against a set of rules or
principles. The results of this evaluation produces a list of usability problems
with explanations of the principle violated by each one. (See Carol Barnum,
?Usability Testing and Research?, pages 35-36.)

I can send you some links on usability if you're interested.

:-)

Robert Plamondon wrote:

> >Robert Plamondon reports: <<When I see the word "heuristics," its usage
> >rarely matches any of its dictionary definitions.  From context, it
> > seems to be a sissy way of saying "rules of thumb."  Or am I missing
> >something?>>


--
Dawn Whitlock
Senior Technical Author
Tait Electronics Ltd
Christchurch, New Zealand

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