title: Evaluating the usability of an interactive, bi-lingual, touchscreen-enabled breastfeeding educational programme: application of Nielson's heuristics.
abstract: The study purpose was to conduct heuristic evaluation of an interactive, bilingual touchscreen-enabled breastfeeding educational programme for Hispanic women living in rural settings in Nebraska. Three raters conducted the evaluation during May 2013 using principles of Nielson's heuristics. A total of 271 screens were evaluated and included: interface (n = 5), programme sections (n = 223) and educational content (n = 43). A total of 97 heuristic violations were identified and were mostly related to interface (8 violations/5 screens) and programme components (89 violations/266 screens). The most common heuristic violations reported were recognition rather than recall (62%, n = 60), consistency and standards (14%, n = 14) and match between the system and real world (9%, n = 9). Majority of the heuristic violations had minor usability issues (73%, n = 71). The only grade 4 heuristic violation reported was due to the visibility of system status in the assessment modules. The results demonstrated that the system was more consistent with Nielsen's usability heuristics. With Nielsen's usability heuristics, it is possible to identify problems in a timely manner, and help facilitate the identification and prioritisation of problems needing urgent attention at an earlier stage before the final deployment of the system.
authors.affiliation: City University of New York, NY, USA. ashish.joshi@sph.cuny.edu.
authors.forename: Ashish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.affiliation: UNMC, Omaha, NE, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas M Puricelli
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Perin
authors.affiliation: UNMC, Omaha, NE, USA.
authors.forename: Chioma
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Amadi
authors.affiliation: UNMC, Omaha, NE, USA.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Trout
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001942:Breast Feeding; D000067508:Computer Heuristics; D003626:Data Display; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000193:education*; D009042:Motivation; D019303:Multilingualism; D009329:Nebraska; D012424:Rural Population; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: breastfeeding; educational programme; heuristics; human–computer interaction