Difference Between Usability Testing and Heuristic Evaluation
1. Usability Testing :
Usability Testing is a testing method for measuring how easy and user-friendly a software application is. It is also known as User Experience(UX) Testing. It is performed by the group of people who acts as a potential end-user. Usability testing mainly focuses on how easily a user can access all the features of an application without facing any issue. It is mostly performed at initial phase of design.
2. Heuristic evaluation :
Heuristic evaluation is the process of thorough evaluation/assessment where the experts used to measure the usability of the user interface. Usability can be defined as how easily a specific user can use a particular design or say interface without facing any problem.
Difference Between Usability Testing and Heuristic Evaluation :
Usability testing | Heuristic evaluation |
---|---|
Performed by the group of non-professional users. | Performed by experts with relevant skills. |
Helps to identify the real issues. | Helps to identify the potential/hidden issues. |
Specific or limited tasks are performed by the user. | Predefined guidelines & checklists are defined and evaluators have to stick with that. |
‘Screen-by-screen’ approach is used by testers to test the system. | Whole system is evaluated by experts in a systematic manner. |
Helps to improve the functionality of the programs. | Helps to improve the overall user experience by thorough evaluation. |
It is costly because it involves a lot of user participation. | It is cheaper and faster than conducting full-blown usability testing. |