Usability Heuristics for Heuristic Evaluation of Gestural Interaction in HCI

Heuristic evaluation, also known as discounted usability engineering method, is a quick and very effective form of usability testing performed typically by usability experts or domain experts. However, in the field of gestural interaction testing, general-purpose usability heuristic framework may not be sufficient to evaluate the usability validity of gestures used. Gestural interaction could be found in products from mainstream touchscreen devices to emerging technologies such as motion tracking, augmented virtual reality, and holograms. Usability testing by experts during the early stages of product development that utilizes emerging technologies of gestural interaction is desirable. Therefore, this study has the objective to create a set of gesture heuristics that can be used in conjunction and with minimal conflict with existing general-purpose usability heuristics for the purpose of designing and testing new gestural interaction. In order to do so, this study reviews literature of gestural interaction and usability testing to find and evaluate previous gesture heuristics. The result is a condensed set of four gesture-specific heuristics comprising Learnability, Cognitive Workload, Adaptability and Ergonomics. Paired sample t-test analysis revealed that significantly more defects were discovered when gesture heuristics knowledge were used for evaluation of gestural interaction.