Heuristics to Evaluate Interactive Systems for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Developmental Psychology
• Software Engineering

Background:

• Usability heuristics are crucial for evaluating software effectiveness.
• Existing heuristics may not adequately address the unique needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Adapting established heuristics is a viable approach to enhance software usability for specific user groups.

Purpose of the Study:

• To adapt and expand Nielsen's usability heuristics for software targeting children with ASD.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of the modified heuristics in identifying usability problems.
• To assess the contribution of improved and new heuristics.

Main Methods:

• Modified a set of 15 usability heuristics based on Nielsen's 1990 guidelines.
• Conducted two evaluation studies comparing the modified heuristics with Nielsen's original set.
• Utilized statistical analysis to determine the effectiveness of the adapted heuristics.

Main Results:

• The modified heuristic set demonstrated significantly greater effectiveness compared to the original Nielsen heuristics.
• A significant difference was found between the improved heuristics and their original counterparts.
• The five new heuristics effectively identified usability problems in software for children with ASD.

Conclusions:

• The adapted usability heuristics are more effective for software designed for children with ASD.
• The modified heuristics successfully identified fixable usability issues before software release.
• This work provides a valuable tool for improving the usability of assistive technology for children with ASD.