Mapping China - Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Name	Severity	Found by # of Evaluators	Location	Description
Clearly Marked Exits	2	3	Search Page	Lack of exits on the search result page. Users can only use the back button to exit this page.
Clearly Marked Exits / Shortcuts	4	3	Entire Site	Appropriate shortcuts and exits cannot be found on all the system pages. For example, if a user is viewing information on one company and would want to perform another search on a similar company, he/she would have to use the back function of the browser to go back all the way to the homepage to perform another search.
Consistency	3	2	Entire Site	The logo, spacing, font, and lines of the header are different on the homepage and on the wireless technology page. Maybe use a template to ensure consistency. Site logo changes among different pages. Some pages have an empty round yellow logo. Some pages have a smaller round yellow logo with star inside. There are other pages that even have no yellow logo at all.
Consistency	3	1	Entire Site	Some pages have footer, such as search result and industry list pages, while others do not.
Consistency	1	2	Entire Site	The zoom-in zoom-out icon is not available on the city profile maps, but is available on all other maps. Users may expect it to be available on all maps.
Consistency	1	1	Company Page	On the company page, the interface uses the name "Financial" on some screens to go to the company’s financial information, but uses the name "Company Statistics" on another screen. Users may be confused by this different terminology for the same function.
Consistency	3	1	Industry Listing page	Different technology industries are listed under a pull down menu whereas different industry sectors are listed as links. What I found most confusing is that the text label “View data by industry” refers to contents (drop-down menu) located to its right while the text label “Industry sectors” refers to contents (sector links) located underneath it. The two labels are located so close together that when I first looked at it I thought they both refer to contents in the drop-down menu box. This principle has also violated “prevent errors”.
Consistency	1	1	Industry Listing page	Some of the listed industries are bolded in font while some are not. What is the difference between the two?
Consistency	2	1	Single Industry page	On the map, “Industry activities” are represented by purple blobs for some and by blue blobs for others.
Consistency	1	1	Single Industry page	On the map, “Major cities” are labeled by blue dots and “Industry activities” are labeled by blots but they are both represented by squares at the legends.
Minimize Users' Memory Load	3	2	Single Industry page	The blots on the map cover up the name of the cities, which prevent the users from seeing the geographic location and name of the cities. When the map is showing company clusters data, the purple blobs on the map block some of the city names. For example, the name “Guangzhou” is almost hidden completely. Users would expect to see the city names as well as the company clusters concurrently. A lighter color for the company clusters or making the layers transparent might solve the problem.
Prevent Errors	2	1	Search Page	On the Search result page, there are links on the top right to go to pages 1, 2, 3, and 4 . Since there are only 4 search matches found and they can all be shown on one page, the other page links should not be made available to users.
Prevent Errors / Minimize User's Memory Load	2	3	Entire Site	The upper-arrow sign on the right upper corner on the Company Overview/Partnerships/Competition pages presents an unclear function. Is it a back button? What will happen when users click on it? At least some tips or mouse-over explanation would help.
Simple & Natural Dialog	4	2	Entire Site	The homepage and other pages lack clear navigation guidelines, i.e. intranet-wide navigation. Users may feel lost first coming to the homepage and don’t know what to do. The initial design from Paulette appears to be better with this having the right navigation bar.
Simple & Natural Dialog	3	1	Company Page	Radio boxes are being used on Company Overview page to select branch offices or services, but there is no default selection. This is not the natural and conventional way to use radio boxes.
Simple & Natural Dialog	3	1	Single Industry page	There is a black arrow on the map of the Single Industry page (wireless technology), and what does it mean? It could easily be mistaken by users that it is referring to Taipei.
Simple & Natural Dialog	3	1	Single Industry page	One of the map selections on both the home page and the single industry page is "Major Cities". Since the map title on search page is "General Information" and the map title on single industry page is "Industry Information", will the major cities be change based on the industry?
Simple & Natural Dialog / Consistency	3	2	Home Page	The search function found on both the Home page and the Industry Listing page has violated  “Simple & Natural Dialogue”. There seems to be a logic issue by having the choice of searching by company or keyword. Keyword should include all the words, including “company names”. The wording for the search box selections is not consistent: one is “company”, the other is “industry keyword”. Does that mean that the search company is not by keyword? A clear wording would be “company” and “industry” or “company keyword” and “industry keyword”.
Speak User's Language	3	1	Industry Listing page	On the Wireless Technology page, some of the sectors are very similar. For example, I cannot tell the difference between the sectors Service Providers and Wireless Services. Users may have difficulty deciding which one to choose, and so again some explanation or description would help.
Speak User's Language	2	2	Partnership page	On the company partnership page, some relationship links (JV, C, M&A) are being used. There is no legend that explains what they are and users may not fully understand them as I do not personally.
Summary by Heuristic Type
Heuristic Name	# of Violations
Simple & Natural Dialog	5
Speak the Users' Language	2
Minimize Users' Memory Load	2
Consistency	9
Feedback	0
Clearly Marked Exits	2
Shortcuts	1
Prevent Errors	2
Help and Documentation	0
Summary by Severity
Severity	Total # of Violations
0- Not a usability problem	0
1- Cosmetic	4
2- Minor	5
3- Major	9
4- Usability catastrophe	2