Interview with Guillaume Gronier – Heuristics Reviews & Expert Reviews - Capian Expert Series
In this interview, Guillaume Gronier defines expert evaluations, their benefits, and when to ideally use them. Guillaume is an ergonomic researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. He works mainly on improving user experience, technological acceptance, and user implication in the design process. He is the co-author of the book “Méthodes de Design UX”, published by Eyrolles in 2015. Guillaume is also one of the founders of the FLUPA association. You can follow him on Twitter or on his personal site. Thanks, Guillaume!
In this series, we interview UX professionals about the importance of usability, ergonomic, and expert evaluations.
Interview translation
What is an usability expert review?
For me, an usability expert review is the evaluation of an interface or a system using ergonomic criteria or the personal expertise of the UX designer, who would use his expertise, heuristics, and criteria to allow him to critique an interface and to make recommendations or a report for the improvement of the interface.
What are the benefits to this type of evaluation?
For me, these types of evaluations work well when you have a sufficiently established wireframe, but still not quite ready for user tests, so they don’t allow to be shown to and understood by end-users. In this case, I find that this type of expert evaluation allows you to flesh out the problems that the users might encounter during the user testing. So it’s a method for the project team or the design team to comb through and uncover the major issues of the interface. So, for me, it’s best for post-wireframe and pre-user testing.
When should you conduct an expert review?
I personally use expert assessments quite frequently when I have clients that say to me, “We have this interface, we’re in the middle of building out this system, we don’t care about the user yet, but we want an expert to give us the perfect interface that’s easily usable and refined.” To reassure my clients, I think expert reviews is a good way to dive into a project, give recommendations, and to inform the client. This method is a good foot in the door and I use it often for that.