CITY MAPPER - HEURISTIC REVIEW & APP REDESIGN
The Challenge
Conduct a heuristic review of a publicly available mobile app and redesign it to address the heuristic findings.
Analyze & Define
Conducted an in-depth literature review of mobile heuristics and explored various heuristic principles
Focused primarily on Nielsen’s Heuristics and Inostroza and Rusu’s Heuristics for Touchscreen-based Mobile Devices.
Used an adapted version of Inostoza and Rusu’s 12 heuristics primarily because: 1) it is a tried and tested method that has seen success in the past, 2) it draws heavily from Nielsen’s Heuristics, 3) the four new heuristics are relevant and much needed.
Sauro’s 3-point severity scale (minor, moderate, critical) is used for the heuristic evaluation.
App Overview
Heuristic Evaluation
Overall, the usability of Citymapper app is good because 7 out of 15 usability issues are minor problems.
From an ergonomics and physical interaction perspective (Heuristic 12), the app is pretty robust.
With respect to user control and freedom (Heuristic 4), the app allows users to freely navigate and undo/redo their actions.
The back or close button on every page provides clearly pointed "emergency exits” to leave unwanted states.
Out of 15 usability issues, 4 issues have a “critical” severity rating and 4 are rated as “moderate”.
Most of the critical and moderate problems are either related to login or search.
Redesigned Screens
“Excellent! You addressed the issues you identified well and incorporated many mobile design principles. I would much rather use your redesigned app - it’s much clearer to see what is happening!”