Using a new set of heuristics in evaluating Arabic interfaces

Abstract

The Information Technology Sector has been growing rapidly in the Arab world. As a result, Arabic interfaces are now being widely used and developed in the region. However, little existing work has been done that focused on evaluating said systems. In this paper, we propose a new set of heuristics for evaluating the usability of systems that use Arabic interfaces. We focused on formal heuristic evaluation as the usability inspection method for identifying issues in these systems. In order to test the proposed set, we compared the findings of heuristics set by Nielsen with ones reported using the proposed heuristics on three Arabic interfaces. Experimental results show that using our heuristics, evaluators were able to find more severe problems than those who used Nielsen’s. Therefore, we believe that heuristic evaluation, when conducted using our proposed heuristics, can be more effective in finding usability issues in Arabic interfaces. Keywords: Arabic interfaces, HCI, Heuristic evaluation, Usability, Interaction design