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ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADISrequires evaluators to spent extra time in elimination, and it has also been criticised as being too abstract(Laurie Kantner and Stephanie Rosenbaum, 1997) (Holzinger, 2005) (Jacob Nielsen, 1992) (Jeffries, 1991).Therefore, there have been a number of attempts to avoid these heuristic evaluation weaknesses, and thesewill be discussed in the following section.2.3 The Need for a Customised Guidelines MethodThe need for customised guidelines appeared when a number of studies, such as Chen and Gavriel or Chenand Macredie, extended the traditional heuristic evaluation method, in different ways, to match theirevaluation needs for different computing systems (as some systems may have more priorities for someusability criteria than other systems), and to avoid the drawbacks of the heuristic evaluation method. Themodifications occurred in one of three ways: extending the heuristic set, extending the heuristic evaluationmethod by modifying the evaluation procedure, and extending the heuristic evaluation method with aconformance rating scale (Chen and Gavriel, 2005) (Chen and Macredie, 2005).2.4 Proposing the Customised GuidelinesThe customised guidelines method is a combination of two methods; heuristic evaluation method plus plus(HE++) and heuristic evaluation plus (HE+). HE++ is one of the proven methods of extending the heuristicset. A number of studies have shown that HE++, an emerging variant of the original HE, outperforms HE inboth effectiveness and reliability (Jarinee and Gitte, 2008) (Jarinee and Jaqueline, 2004). HE+ includes anextra feature for aiding the evaluation process, called a ‘usability problem profile’ (Jarinee and Jaqueline,2004) (Jarinee and Gitte, 2008), which is designed to address the fact that many of the problems found byevaluators are common to certain types of products or applications. The proposed method targets commercialwebsites, although it will employ the same technique of heuristic evaluation in terms of using guidelines andevaluators only, and does not involve any extra resources. Thus, it can be now stated that the customisedguidelines method consists of combination of the HE++ and HE+; the first component is the HE++, whichhas the following criteria derived from Jarinee and Gitte (2008):1. Visibility, distinguishability, and timeliness2. Match between system and the real world3. User control and freedom4. Consistency and standards5. Error prevention and recovery6. Recognition rather than recall7. Flexibility and efficiency of use8. Aesthetic and minimalist design9. Supports user tasks and avoids difficult concepts10. Supports modification and progress evaluation11. Relevant, correct, and adequate information (Jarinee and Gitte, 2008).The second component is the HE+ method, which includes a ‘usability problem profile’ that can befruitfully used in many instances. Moreover, several researchers have discussed the components that shouldbe included in the usability problem profile for e-commerce websites. Chattratichart and Lindgaard reportedthat the most recent profile now consists of seven problem areas: content, navigation, graphics, systemefficiency and functionality, formatting and layout, wording, and help and error messages (Jarinee and Gitte,2008). However, Chattratichart and Brodie state that e-commerce websites should include only six problemareas: content, graphics, navigation, layout, terminology, and matches with user’s tasks (Chattratichart andBrodie, 2002) (Chattratichart and Brodie, 2004). In addition, Van der Merwe and Bekker said that when anevaluator evaluates an e-commerce website, the criteria or areas should include: content, graphics,navigation, reliability, and security and privacy (Rian Van der Merwe and James Bekker, 2003). Afterstudying all of these, the researchers here decided to choose the components for the usability problem profile(in e-commerce websites) based on those criteria that are present in the majority of these studies. The finalusability problem profile in this research contains Content, Graphics, Navigation, Layout and Formatting,Reliability, and Privacy and Security.170