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ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADISE- COMMERCE CUSTOMISED GUIDELINES VS.GENERAL HEURISTIC EVALUATION: A COMPARATIVESTUDY ON EVALUATING E-COMMERCE WEBSITESMrs. Ghada Aldehim * , Dr. Pam Mayhew * and Mr. Majed Alshamari *School of Computing Sciences in the University of East Anglia - Norwich- United KingdomABSTRACTRecently, the growth of the Internet has led to an explosion of website content, and therefore research into usability isextremely important. The heuristic evaluation method is one of the usability inspection methods that is employed toevaluate Internet websites in order to assess and improve their usability. However, heuristic evaluation suffers from anumber of drawbacks; therefore, we are exploring a customised guidelines method designed especially for e-shops. Thismethod is compared with the traditional heuristic evaluation method by employing both methods to compare whichmethod is able to offer more efficient support to the evaluators, and hence to generate effective feedback. In order toachieve this aim, two electronic shops are chosen and used to carry out the evaluation process. Eight expert evaluators areengaged in this study, divided into two groups of four. Each group evaluates two electronic websites. The analysis andfindings of this study clearly show that the customised guidelines method is able to offer better results than the traditionalheuristic evaluation method.KEYWORDSHeuristic evaluation, evaluators, usability, customised guidelines, website evaluation.1. INTRODUCTIONResearchers need to focus on the usability of Internet websites as it is one of the fastest-growing areas. Thiscan be clearly reasoned because of a number of critical factors such as the number of the Internet users, thenumber of websites, the efforts of designers and developers, and the services offered via the Internet (ScottHenninger, 2001). Several evaluation methods can be applied and used in order to measure website usability;one of these methods is the inspection method, which includes: heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough,and feature inspection (Jacobsen Nielsen, 1992). Among these techniques, heuristic evaluation isrecommended as the fastest, cheapest, most flexible and effective way for identifying usability problems in auser interface (Saul Greenberg et al., 2000). This form of evaluation is “a method for finding usabilityproblems in a user interface design by having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge itscompliance with recognized usability principles (the 'heuristics')” (Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich, 1990).This paper starts by exploring the current literature on heuristic evaluation, its pros and cons, and then howthe customised guidelines method was derived. This is followed by the paper’s objectives and the approachtaken in order to achieve the paper’s aim. It concludes with data analysis.2. LITERATURE REVIEWThis section discusses the heuristic evaluation method, how it is employed and the number of evaluatorsneeded. It also explores its advantages and disadvantages. It then presents the need for a customised methodand how it was proposed.168