Heuristic evaluation is a usability evaluation method where a small group of evaluators (3 to 5 people) examines the interface of a website/digital product with recognized usability principles. Before starting the heuristic evaluation process, it is important for the evaluation manager to define "tasks" for evaluators so they can inspect the design and user experience in accordance with these tasks and pinpoint usability issues that matter most for your users and business.

But how does one choose tasks to conduct for the heuristic evaluation?

Find out what is important for users and your business

It is always important to know your users first. Who are they? What are their goals? Where do they have problems? You can conduct some research or study existing user data to map out the personas and scenarios. Then, you can define the tasks that users need to accomplish in order to achieve their goals. For example, in our previous UX audit of McGraw Hill's website, we know that its users are students because McGraw Hill is an educational publisher, and their goal is to get books they need for their studies from McGraw Hill's Website. Hence, we can define our task for the evaluation of McGraw Hill's website to be: "Bing a student to decide: I want to buy/rent an eBook on this website".

On top of knowing the users and their goals, think about what the goal is for your business. Increasing revenue? Boosting the subscription? The needs of the business can also give you direction to define the tasks for your evaluation.

Consider user-wise and business-wise

You may generate many tasks for the heuristic evaluation. Therefore it is crucial to prioritize and select tasks according to what is important user-wise and business-wise. Let's use an e-commerce website that sells clothes as an example. If you find that people who buy socks are having some problems in their shopping process, you would need to include this as a task for your heuristic evaluation. On the other hand, if the sales of socks generate 1% of the revenue but the sales of shoes generate 80% of the revenue, then from a business perspective, you would need to evaluate the way people buy shoes because it is more important for your business.

Conclusion

The key to defining tasks for the heuristic evaluation is all about understanding. Understanding what your users want to achieve through your product and what your business objective is can help you decide on tasks, ensuring your evaluators know what to inspect during the heuristic evaluation process. Also try to prioritize what is important for your users and business now, so your tasks can lead to a more focused evaluation that creates valuable insight for parts of your business that weigh more.