Evaluating Online Travel Agencies’ Usability: What Heuristics Should We Use?

Abstract

Online travel agencies’ customers have nowadays a wide range of alternatives and are more demanding. Usability is a basic attribute in software quality. Heuristic evaluation is arguably the most popular usability inspection method, well-known and widely used. A heuristic evaluation may be performed based on generic or specific heuristics. Many sets of specific (usually domain-related) usability heuristics were published. Heuristic quality scales to validate and/or evaluate new heuristics were proposed. The paper analyzes evaluators’ perception on three sets of usability heuristics, when evaluating the same product: Nielsen’s generic heuristics, a set of cultural-oriented heuristics for e-Commerce, and a set of heuristics for smartphones applications (SMASH). We made an experiment with 38 Computer Science students, enrolled in a Human-Computer Interaction introductory course, using the online travel agency Expedia.com as case study; the web and mobile versions were evaluated. We assessed students’ perception based on a questionnaire that rates each heuristic individually (Utility, Clarity, Ease of use, Necessity of additional checklist), but also the set of heuristics as a whole (Easiness, Intention of future use, Completeness).