Human Computer Interaction - Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic Evaluation of Pinterest.com
Emma Murphy 11114614
Colin Doherty 11115122
Rachel Ryan 11135581
Samantha Berry 10103988
Introduction
This report presents a Heuristic Evaluation of the website Pinterest.com an image sharing
website that usually deals with themes. When looking at this site, that everyone in the group
loves to use, we have noticed some annoyances that we never really had a place to air those
concerns before. So as regular users of the site, we were fairly used to their errors, and were
able to replicate them to get definitive results. The report is organized as follows: section 2
presents the Heuristic Evaluation of Pinterest, section 3, Examples from the Literature we found
on different papers showing different methods of evaluation, Section 4 our Report on the
Heuristic Evaluation of Pinterest, 4.1 System Specs, 4.2 Results of the Evaluation, 5
Conclusions, References and our Appendix.
On Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation is a method of usability testing. Nielsen explains what a heuristic
evaluation is as a “method for finding usability problems in a user interface design by
having a small set of evaluators examine the interface.” (Nielsen 1992) It is a widely
accepted method for finding potential problems in user interfaces (Baker et al 2001)
though it also has it’s advantages and disadvantages. In Nielsen and Molich’s article
(Nielsen and Molich, 1990) they note some of the advantages of heuristic evaluation, if the
research is being carried out in a group then the reliability of the results is more secure.
They also state that it is an inexpensive method to carry out, there doesn’t need to be a lot
of planning in order to carry out a heuristic evaluation, it is a method of research which can
be used in the very early stages of development, and it is easy to get people to part take in
a heuristic evaluation. (Nielsen and Molich, 1990)
In Jeffries and Desurvire’s paper they point out severe disadvantages. In contrast to
Nielsen and Molich’s paper they make the point that heuristic evaluation can be very costly.
(Jeffries and Desurvire, 1992) Their paper states that for heuristic evaluation needs 3.5
experts minimum to be effective which can be very costly. This type of evaluation also leads
to many minor problems being found which take developers a lot of time to sort through.

The growing use of heuristic evaluation has also lead to many people using it as their only
form of testing. This has meant that they have stopped using usability testing which, if used
in conjunction with heuristic evaluation, will give a much more conclusive set of results.
In the Baker, Greenberg and Gutwin paper, they identify many different problems
associated with Heuristic Evaluation, such as the difficulty that comes with studying how
people use the system when there’s more than one person using it at the same time,
(Baker et al, 2001) in different ways and for different purposes, but still collaborating. Is it
also an incredibly time consuming and costly practice, as sometimes evaluators can only
study a certain amount of the group at a time when all are using it, then they need to go
back and study the people they missed, but at that point, they may be using the program in
a different way. (Baker et al, 2001)
Examples of the Literature
Heuristic Evaluation of User Interfaces by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich (1990).
This article gives an overview of the thought process and work which goes into
carrying out a heuristic evaluation. Nielsen and Molich present in their introduction the
methods which are used, “formally, automatically, empirically, and heuristically”. (Nielsen
and Molich 1990)
In this research paper, they choose to focus on the empirical methods of research. This is
the first weakness of the paper, because Nielsen and Molich chose only the empirical
methods for their research this automatically makes their results less reliable.
The authors are involved in four experiments in order to test this method. The first
experiment involves students who were studying a user interface design course and who
had also taken a lecture from the authors on heuristic evaluations and usability problems. In
this test they had to, named Teledata, they did had to work with ten screen shots of a
system and express any thoughts of problems they would encounter with its design and
functionalities. The evaluators were not working with a proper working system throughout
this experiment. The second test described in the paper is Mantel. This was a fake
information system made available by an also fabricated company which went by the same
name as this experiment. The test was carried out in the “Danish Computerworld”
magazine and the evaluators were the readers. Unlike the first group, the readers had
never attended a lecture of either of the authors on this subject. This strengthens the
reliability of this test as Nielsen and Molich felt that this particular experiment was important
as it gives the opinion of industry professionals and not just students. The third and fourth
tests, Savings and Transport, were both based on voice recognition technology. Again the

evaluators were students in the same course as the first group, and had also attended the
same lecture. Although the authors do try to get an unbiased evaluation from their
experiments, they try to include both industry professionals in user interface design as well
as the students of this subject. Nielsen and Molich, however, leave out members of the
general public who have no experience in this area. This is a great error, a lot can be
learned from including people with no previous knowledge of user interface design. This
problem continues to affect the authors results of the system as they even question
themselves the reliability of the results, “WiIl they in fact present problems to real users,
and to what degree do they constitute the complete set of usability problems?”. (Nielsen
and Molich 1990) Despite questioning their own results, Nielsen and Molich stated that
they did not try to carry out experiments to cover this issue.
The authors then move on to talk about aggregated evaluations, a positive of this paper,
which involved a group of researchers each analysing a system for usability problems and
then making a collective, agreed list of the problems. I shared this idea with the group and
we discussed it. We felt that this was a valuable approach that we would like to work with in
this assignment if possible.
The authors also go through the obvious advantages of a heuristic evaluation, it is
affordable to carry out, people feel that it is simpler to take part in a heuristic evaluation
rather than any other research experiment, and it can be used for research at the very
beginning of the development process.
Another positive aspect of this paper is that it is unbiased towards heuristic evaluations, it
gives both advantages and disadvantages of this method of research. The authors
understand that it is difficult to carry out a heuristic evaluation and at no time do they try to
deny this fact.
Finding Usability Problems Through Heuristic Evaluation by Jakob Nielsen (1992).
This article focuses on the use of heuristic evaluation to find usability problems.
A telephone banking system was evaluated by three groups of people; novices, usability
specialists and double specialists. The novices had no prior usability expertise, the double
specialists had expertise in usability and telephone systems, and the last group were
regular usability specialists. The paper gives a good insight into how well each group
performs by using tables and statistics. After the reader is giving the system, the problems
found within the system are critically analysed. The problems are split into major and minor
problems, with sixteen problems being found in total. Each of these problems is described
in detail, with Nielsen stating the usability principle in brackets afterward i.e. (speak the

users’ language.) I found this effective as it allowed me to understand exactly what the
problem was.
We are then given the results of the heuristic evaluation, with each group in different
columns so they could be analysed together. The results showed that the novices found the
least amount of problems, while the double specialists found the most. Though we are
given averages so we can see the discrepancies of this with the next graph which shows a
curve of how well each group performed.
Nielsen then compares the performance of the regular specialists to the double specialists
and states that the “double specialists found more problems, not because they were
necessarily better usability specialists in general, but because they had specific
experience with usability issues for the kind of user interface that was being evaluated.”
(Nielsen 1992) Nielsen provides statistics which compares how well the double specialists
performed against the regular specialists on average to back up this point.
The second table in the paper shows how the problems can be grouped, such as the
severity of the problem, the heuristics and the location in the dialogue, though the table only
shows the problems that were found during the analysis. This table showed similar results
to the article Emma read [Nielsen and Molich, 1990 ] as it also shows data for a heuristic
analysis on Mantel and Teledata, as well as the telephone banking system.
The rest of the article is spent explaining all of the tables through various headings Nielsen
says that previous research has shown that heuristic evaluation finds more minor problems
than other evaluation systems, though the definition of problem is rather loose. An error
was major if it delayed the user, or caused the system to behave improperly.
The paper concludes that usability specialists were much better than those than without
experience, and those with even more expertise; double specialists, performed even
better. It talks of how heuristic evaluation helps to find usability problems but it slightly
biased as it does not provide any other alternatives, however the article achieves what it
sets out to do, explaining how heuristic evaluation finds usability problems, which is a clear
positive aspect of the paper.
Usability testing vs, Heuristic Evaluation
Was there a contest?
By Robin Jeffries and Heather Desurvire
This article aims to highlight the fact that heuristic evaluation, although effective, cannot be

used as the only form of testing for usability. Due to the growing popularity of heuristic
evaluation many in the field have taken it to be a replacement for other forms of testing, with
the main exclusion being usability testing. The goal for the authors of this paper is to show
that the best form of testing is to use both heuristic evaluation and usability testing as this,
in their opinion, gives the best results.
The authors begin the paper by expressing their distress at the misinterpretation of the
extent to which heuristic evaluation is effective. Although this method does find a vast
amount of problems, many of these problems can be small and insignificant. Jeffries and
Desurvire go on to speak about their interactions with colleagues who have ruled out
usability testing altogether in favour of heuristic evaluation. They recount said interactions,
giving examples such as Bruce Tognazzini saying that using experts for heuristic evaluation
has put the “myth of usability testing to rest”. They go on to stress that this view, taken from
their paper, is grossly misinformed. The use of heuristic evaluation by itself only serves to
give inconclusive results.
Usability testing has been proven to point out severe problems experienced by the user
that heuristic evaluation failed to notice. From their research there was not a lot of
crossover in the problems found in both types of evaluation, meaning that, when used
together, there was greater knowledge gained of problems experienced. However the
paper falls down in this respect as there are no specific studies or values given to back up
these statements, only brief mentions of “previous studies”. The paper doesn’t go into
much detail on any study and only gives vague references to back up statements. These
studies appear to have been mentioned in the previous paper by Jeffries and Desurvire
that this paper leads on from, but as for this article there is a lack of solid data to go by.
There is evidence given that heuristic evaluation adds greatly to costs as there are so
many problems identified that may not even need to be fixed and may just be “matters of
taste”. (Jeffries and Desurvire, 1992) With so many problems to get through software
developers may end up spending much more time and money than necessary and the
heuristic evaluation may have been more of a hindrance than help. This method also
requires expert “evaluators who have been trained in usability issues”. Heuristic evaluation
was also much less effective with only one evaluator, with “3.5 evaluators at a minimum”
needed, making the process quite expensive.
Jeffries and Desurvire go on to address the misconception that “one should select a
single method of usability evaluation”. (Jeffries and Desurvire, 1992) There seems to
have been confusion, perhaps stemming from their previous paper, that heuristic
evaluation can replace all other forms of testing. However they strongly advocate for varied

methods, which give much more conclusive results. They stress that their previous papers
have shown that “different methods have various strengths” and that it is extremely
ineffective to only use one method, as many problems discovered in usability testing don’t
show up during a heuristic evaluation, and vice versa.
This paper serves to broaden the minds of people conducting usability tests. From the
paper it is clear that many have taken heuristic evaluation to be the best form of testing
and, although the authors are in favour of the method, they discuss in depth the
disadvantages of the method so as to give a more detailed view of the process and its
downfalls, making people aware that it cannot be used as a replacement for all other
methods. Although the paper has weak points, especially its lack of data and facts, it is
clear that there has been more extensive research in past papers and that this paper is
focusing on writing any misconceptions taken from said papers.
Heuristic Evaluation of Groupware Based on the Mechanics of Collaboration
Kevin Baker, Saul Greenberg and Carl Gutwin
This article focuses on the development of Heuristic Evaluation (HE) for groupware or
collaborative software. From the get go the article tells us that there are many problems
with this software as it’s not usually widely used despite their availability. It is also quite
difficult to evaluate. It has adapted Nielsen’s heuristic evaluation methodology. However
HE is usually developed for single user apps. Without specific evaluation methods
groupware developers cannot learn from experience.
Groupware that is both costeffective
and timely has not yet been developed, thus it is not a
favourite practice. Evaluators choose and mix appropriate techniques to fit the situation.
User Observation: The Evaluators observe a person using a system to perform tasks. This
method tends to be long and can be too sterile it does not account for social,
organisational, political and motivational factors that are influences.
Field Studies: The evaluators study people. These provide the context that’s missing from
observational techniques, but are complicated and costly in terms of how much time it
takes. The evaluators need experience and a lot of time for the evaluation. There also
needs to be a high number of people to be evaluated.
Inspection Methods: Evaluators inspect usability bugs according to criteria related to how a
task is seen and performed.
Heuristic evaluation involves a small set of usability experts. It is popular in both research
and industry and can be done in a short amount of time. HE is being developed to evaluate
groupware. The process started in Greenberg. Tailored for evaluating comprehensive
collaborative environments and how they coexist.

The belief is that this study will provide framework for identifying the problems in both
groupware prototypes and existing systems.
This article looks through the advantages and disadvantages of various types of
groupware, such as text, video, audio or pictures.
It also identifies the people have their own way of communicating and that when a piece of
software tries to mediate that communication in its own way, it can become frustrating and
people could be unwilling to use it.
The papers weaknesses were a lack of solid facts and studies. There were also long
winded paragraphs that were sometimes difficult to decipher.
Report on Heuristic Evaluation of Pinterest.com
Pinterest is “a tool for collecting and organizing things you love”. The site allows their
users to “repin”
or in other words reblog
other user’s pins, they may also like pins as well
as comment on them. The website allows users to upload their own pins either from their
computer or another website. We chose this website as we all had used it in the past, and
were well aware of it’s functions and design. As individuals we all have had experiences
with this site, some good and bad, as a group we felt that although the website was one
which usually worked perfectly there was some usability problems which needed to be
addressed.
1.1 System Specifications
Pins
Images and videos posted to the sight are referred to as your “pins”. You can add pins from
other people’s boards, other websites or upload your own. People who follow your boards
can also repin
your pins to their own boards and like your pins. When you hover the mouse
over a pin the “pin it” and “like” buttons appear.
Boards
Your pins are organized into boards. These boards are like folders which you can title. You
can follow specific boards or all of someone’s boards on their profile.
Profile
Pinterest, like many other forms of social networks, provides you with a personal “profile”.
Your profile consists of an overview of your “boards”. It also shows how many followers you
have and how many people you follow, as well as your amount of boards, pins and likes.
Home Feed
Your “Home Feed” is where you can see the activity from others who you follow on the site.
Clicking on the pinterest button at the top of the page brings you to the home feed.
Search bar

The search bar allows you to search for pins using key words or categories. There is also a
dropdown
menu of popular categories which you can choose from located next to the
search bar.
Following and Unfollowing
Pinterest allows you to follow other peoples boards. You can follow either one specific
board by clicking the follow button on that board, or you can follow all of someone’s boards
by clicking follow on their profile. Once the follow button has been clicked it changes to an
“unfollow” button. You can then unfollow boards in the same manner but by clicking the
same button.
“Pin it” bookmark button
Pinterest allows you to download the “Pin it” button which appears on your bookmarks bar.
When you see something that you would like to pin on another site you can press this
button, select the image or video, and another window will open allowing you to choose
which board to pin to and to name the pin and pin it directly from that site.
1.2 Results of the Evaluation
[Summarise Findings]
In order to find problems with Pinterest.com, we used Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics for
User Interface Design (Nielsen, 1995) as we found them quite simple to group and follow,
and would be easier when creating graphs later. We also used our lecture notes on
Heuristic Evaluation (Pinatti, 2013) as they were in the same section as the project brief,
thus we had already had access to them without requiring to do further research. We found
several problems, thank to these heuristic rules, which are explained in full detail below
[Number of Problems Identified by each individual]
While carrying out the Heuristic Evaluation, our group found several problems with the
Pinterest.com website. Colin found ten, Emma found eight, Rachel found ? and Samantha
found ?. However some of these problems were the same problem, or the same problem
in a different setting. In total we had eighteen problems which varied on degrees of
severity.
Colin 10
Emma 8
Rachel
Samantha 7
[Variation of Severity Ratings]

As a group we have all assigned different values for each problem in the appendices.
While doing this we didn’t consults with any of the other members as we wanted the results
to be completely unbiased and not influenced by any of the other members. As you can see
from the variation in all the ratings some members rate certain features more important
than others and this is due to personal preference and taste.
[Graphs of which problems messed up each heuristic]
Major Problems
Problem 1: Clicked on an image, to try find the source and discovered a page which
showed multiple posts ‘Pinned from: thefancy.com.” When clicked “thefancy.com” it was
found that it wasn’t a link, just text, thus not able to find the image source, even though it
appeared to be a link, confusing to a user who understood that websites had a .com at the
end of them. (Consistency, Speak Users Language)

Problem 2: On the other side of the screen when problem 1 occurred, a clickable button
was discovered which said “thefancy.com,” It was clicked, hoping to find the image source,
except it led to the homepage of “thefancy.com” instead of the image source that the user
was looking for. It was also confusing to have multiple sightings of “thefancy.com” on the
one page, thus confusing the user as to their meanings. (Consistency)
Problem 3: Blocking was a major problem exposed . Blocking is the process of deleting
another user, so they can no longer see interactions. After blocking somebody, and
returning to the previous page, the blocking menu didn’t go away. Upon refreshing the
page, and it still wouldn’t go away, it also stayed when clicking on to the Pinterest
Homepage. In order to get rid of this, the tab had to be closed and another opened to
continue using Pinterest without obstruction. (Error Prevention, Efficiency of Use)
Problem 4: Unblocking was also a large problem as there was no list of users blocked. In
order to unblock a user, one had to go to their profile, and click the unblock button. This
was a problem, as a user had to remember the user’s name in order to type it into a search
bar. This could be avoided by having a list of people a user has blocked. Upon
remembering the user’s name, it was impossible to navigate to their profile due to a
system error. (Error Prevention, Minimize the users memory load.)
Problem 5: The following section on a users’ personal profile was too crowded, and didn’t
respond to interactions. The following section showed a user who they were following, with
the ability to unfollow users. Upon unfollowing many users the screen did not update. There
are now many users visible both with “Follow” and “Unfollow” buttons. This made it
annoying trying to find other users that one wanted to unfollow. Even when refreshed, the
users unfollowed remained in the “following” section. (Error Prevention, Consistency)
Problem 6: Adding a new pin also provided several problems. Though Colin found the
biggest problem. When the popup
dialogue to add a new pin appeared, selected a pdf, to
share with people. When “Upload” was clicked a user was taken to the next screen to add
more details and a caption to the upload. When pin was clicked, the user was given the
following message. “You need to upload an image or provide the 'image_url' parameter.”
This error appeared far too late, and was quite a confusing message. Before uploading it
should have stated that a user could only upload images. (Error Prevention, Speak the
user’s language)
Problem 7: Emma also had problems trying to upload pins, as when she clicked the pin
button it did not work. She had to press the button twice in order to get it to carry out the
function that it was supposed to. (Error Prevention)

Problem 8: Invitation to group boards also caused problems, Emma received an invitation
to join a group board, but when she clicked “Yes” an error occurred and she was not able to
join that board. When another invitation was sent, the same error occured. (Error
Prevention)
Problem 9: The finding friends option through other social mediums also caused
problems. When Colin joined pinterest, he connected his twitter account, but not his
facebook account for privacy. When he tried to find his twitter friends, he was told to refresh
the page, due to an error. He was not able to find friends until he refreshed for the third
time. Emma and Rachel also had this problem except refreshing did not work for them,
they had to wait a few minutes before trying again. (Error Prevention)
Minor Problems
Problem 10: In the recent activity section, Colin clicked on “Nick Matthews and 1 other
followed your board Artisims”, and it led to Nick’s profile, while Colin was hoping that it
would lead to the followers of the board or show who the other follower was. He then
clicked in another area and it led to the “Artisims” board. This proves to be very confusing
for the user. (Consistency)
Problem 11: Unfollow button grayed out, which confused Colin as to whether the function
had been carried out or not, until it changed to a red follow button 1 second later. Colin was
using Pinterest.com on his laptop, and saw an option to updgrade to the newer version of
Pinterest, upon clicking on it, it automatically upgraded. This got even more confusing as
the unfollow button was harder to find and took longer to change. It no longer changed to a
red follow button, but also a grayed out version of the previous follow button. This involves
too much clicking to carry out the unfollow function in Pinterest.com. (Consistency)
Problem 12: Clicked on a pin, Colin hovered over share button to get the options he
wanted to see appear, he then changed his mind and then wanted to view his likes, the
options remained until he changed screen. This can be annoying for the user if the options
happened to block another function on the Pinterest.com screen. ( Error Prevention )
Problem 13: Recent activity, two members of our group found that they couldn’t scroll
down to view older entries and that there was no link provided to view older entries. This
was annoying for the user who didn’t use Pinterest that frequently and wanted to refresh
their memory, or see their most popular pins. ( User control and freedom, Flexibility )
Problem 14: Upon clicking a link to a dashboard, Emma found when she pressed this link

all it served to do was reload the page that she was already on, instead of leading to the
board of another user. ( Error Prevention )
Problem 15: When on a dashboard of another user the categories are not able at the top,
Emma had to press the back button three times in order to get this feature back. This
involves too many clicks for just this one purpose. ( Consistency )
Problem 16: When you press follow button on a page after you have repinned
it’s post,
the window closes. Emma wanted to view this profile after she had followed it and she had
to open the window up again herself. This also involves too many clicks. ( Consistency,
Minimalist Design)
Problem 17: When trying to comment on a pin, Emma had to click the button several times
to get it to carry out its function. As it happened a few times, Emma just resorted to not
commenting on pins as she found the fact that the button didn’t work to be very irritating. (
Error Prevention )
Problem 18: Clicked “X” on window, which asked whether the user wanted to download a
mobile application version of Pinterest, and it reappeared.
When Colin clicked “X” the first
time and this did nothing, it was only after he had pressed the button several times that it
actually carried out it’s function. It later came back, and Colin had to click it again. (Error
Prevention, Consistency)
Conclusions
Through this assignment, as a group, we found that carrying out a heuristic evaluation can
be quite difficult and challenging even despite it’s various advantages. Nevertheless
Heuristic evaluations are helpful when designing or developing a new website or software,
as it forces and motivates the users or testers to be critical when using it. All the team had
used Pinterest.com before this assignment and yet we had never noticed how many
problems existed in this website. This shows that users will put up with problems in
websites and software as we have almost come to accept that there will be some
problems. The major problems that we encountered with Pinterest.com are ones which
cannot be ignored and need to be fixed by the designers in order to make Pinterest as
user friendly as possible. The minor problems associated with Pinterest.com are ones
which the user can deal with but do interrupt the flow of the website and can be irritating to
the user. As a group, we all agree that Pinterest need to adopt a more userfriendly
design
and flow to their website as it is quite possible that you may end up lost in it.

References
Nielsen, J. (1992). Finding usability problems through heuristic evaluation. In Proceedings of the
SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '92), Penny Bauersfeld,
John Bennett, and Gene Lynch (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 373380.
Baker, K., Greenberg, S. and Gutwin, C. (2001). Heuristic Evaluation of Groupware Based on the
Mechanics of Collaboration. In Proceedings of the 8th IFIP International Conference on
Engineering for HumanComputer
Interaction (EHCI '01), Murray Reed Little and Laurence Nigay
(Eds.). SpringerVerlag,
London, UK, UK, 123140.
Nielsen, J. and Molich, R. (1990). “Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces.” In Proceedings of the
SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '90), Jane Carrasco Chew
and John Whiteside (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 249256.
Jeffries, R. and Desurvire, H. (1992). “Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation: was there a
contest?.” SIGCHI Bull. 24, 4 (October 1992), 3941.
Nielsen, J. (1995). “10 Usability Heuristic for User Interface Design.” [ONLINE] Available
at:http://www.nngroup.com/articles/tenusabilityheuristics/.
[Accessed 01 April 13].
Pinatti, F. (2013) ‘Heuristic Evaluation’, CS4826: Human Computer Interaction. Feb 27,
University Of Limerick, unpublished.
Appendix I
Final Ranked List of Unified Problems
with Average Severity Ratings
# Problem Location Violated
Heuristic
Problem Description Average
Severity
1
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
Clicked an image, trying find the
image source, discovered a page
which showed multiple posts
‘Pinned from: thefancy.com.” When
clicked “thefancy.com” it was found
that it wasn’t a link, just text, thus
not able to find the image source,
even though it appeared to be a link.

2
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
On the other side of the screen
when problem 1 occurred, a
clickable button was discovered
which said “thefancy.com,” It was
clicked, hoping to find the image
source, except it led to the
homepage of “thefancy.com”
instead of the image source that the
user was looking for. It was also
confusing to have multiple sightings
of “thefancy.com” on the one page,
thus confusing the user as to their
meanings.
3 Other Users Profile
and Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Efficiency of Use
Blocking another was a major
problem exposed. After blocking
somebody, and returning to the
previous page, the blocking menu
didn’t go away. Upon refreshing the
page, and it still wouldn’t go away, it
also stayed when clicking on to the
Pinterest Homepage. In order to get
rid of this, the tab had to be closed
and another opened to continue
using Pinterest without obstruction.
4
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Minimize the
user’s memory
load
Unblocking was also a large
problem as there was no list of
users blocked. In order to unblock a
user, one had to go to their profile,
and click the unblock button. This
was a problem, as a user had to
remember the user’s name in order
to type it into a search bar. This
could be avoided by having a list of
people a user has blocked. Upon
remembering the user’s name, it
was impossible to navigate to their
profile due to a system error.
5
User’s Own Profile/
Following Section
Error Prevention
The following section on a users’
personal profile was too crowded,
and didn’t respond to interactions.
The following section showed a
user who they were following, with
the ability to unfollow users. Upon
unfollowing many users the screen

Pinterest.com/user/f
ollowers
Consistency did not update. There are now many
users visible both with “Follow” and
“Unfollow” buttons. This made it
annoying trying to find other users
that one wanted to unfollow. Even
when refreshed, the users
unfollowed remained in the
“following” section.
6
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Speak the user’s
language
Adding a new pin also provided
several problems. Though Colin
found the biggest problem. When
the popup
dialogue to add a new
pin appeared, selected a pdf, to
share with people. When “Upload”
was clicked a user was taken to the
next screen to add more details and
a caption to the upload. When pin
was clicked, the user was given the
following message. “You need to
upload an image or provide the
'image_url' parameter.” This error
appeared far too late, and was quite
a confusing message. Before
uploading it should have stated that
a user could only upload images.
7
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Emma also had problems trying to
upload pins, as when she clicked
the pin button it did not work. She
had to press the button twice in
order to get it to carry out the
function that it was supposed to.
8
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Invitation to group boards also
caused problems, Emma received
an invitation to join a group board,
but when she clicked “Yes” an error
occurred and she was not able to
join that board. When another
invitation was sent, the same error
occured.
9
Find Friends
(Pinterest.com/find_f
Error Prevention
The finding friends option through
other social mediums also caused
problems. When Colin joined
pinterest, he connected his twitter

riends/) account, but not his facebook
account for privacy. When he tried
to find his twitter friends, he was
told to refresh the page, due to an
error. He was not able to find friends
until he refreshed for the third time.
Emma and Rachel also had this
problem except refreshing did not
work for them, they had to wait a
few minutes before trying again.
10
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
In the recent activity section, Colin
clicked on “Nick Matthews and 1
other followed your board Artisims”,
and it led to Nick’s profile, while
Colin was hoping that it would lead
to the followers of the board or
show who the other follower was.
He then clicked in another area and
it led to the “Artisims” board. This
proves to be very confusing for the
user.
11
Pop up Dialogue on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Unfollow button grayed out, which
confused Colin as to whether the
function had been carried out or not,
until it changed to a red follow
button 1 second later. Colin was
using Pinterest.com on his laptop,
and saw an option to updgrade to
the newer version of Pinterest, upon
clicking on it, it automatically
upgraded. This got even more
confusing as the unfollow button
was harder to find and took longer
to change. It no longer changed to a
red follow button, but also a grayed
out version of the previous follow
button. This involves too much
clicking to carry out the unfollow
function in Pinterest.com.
12
Homepage
Error Prevention
Clicked on a pin, Colin hovered over
share button to get the options he
wanted to see appear, he then
changed his mind and then wanted
to view his likes, the options

(Pinterest.com) remained until he changed screen.
This can be annoying for the user if
the options happened to block
another function on the
Pinterest.com screen.
13
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
Recent activity, two members of our
group found that they couldn’t scroll
down to view older entries and that
there was no link provided to view
older entries. This was annoying for
the user who didn’t use Pinterest
that frequently and wanted to
refresh their memory, or see their
most popular pins.
14
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Upon clicking a link to a dashboard,
Emma found when she pressed
this link all it served to do was
reload the page that she was
already on, instead of leading to the
board of another user.
15
Other Users Profile
(Pinterest.com/other
user)
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
When on a dashboard of another
user the categories are not able at
the top, Emma had to press the
back button three times in order to
get this feature back. This involves
too many clicks for just this one
purpose.
16
Popup
window on
Hompage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Minimalist Design
When you press follow button on a
page after you have repinned
it’s
post, the window closes. Emma
wanted to view this profile after she
had followed it and she had to open
the window up again herself. This
also involves too many clicks.
17
Pop Up Dialogue on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
When trying to comment on a pin,
Emma had to click the button
several times to get it to carry out its
function. As it happened a few
times, Emma just resorted to not
commenting on pins as she found
the fact that the button didn’t work to
be very irritating.

18
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com
Error Prevention
Consistency
Clicked “X” on window, which asked
whether the user wanted to
download a mobile application
version of Pinterest, and it
reappeared.
When Colin clicked
“X” the first time and this did
nothing, it was only after he had
pressed the button several times
that it actually carried out it’s
function. It later came back, and
Colin had to click it again.
Appendix II
Initial Individual Report
# Problem
Location
Violated
Heuristic
Problem Description
1
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com
Error Prevention
Consistency
When I clicked “X” on window, which asked
whether I wanted to download a mobile
application version of Pinterest, it
reappeared.
When I clicked “X” the first time
and this did nothing, it was only after I had
pressed the button several times that it
actually carried out it’s function. It later came
back, and I had to click it again to get rid of it.
2
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
In the recent activity section, I clicked on
“Nick Matthews and 1 other followed your
board Artisims”, and it led to Nick’s profile. I
was hoping that it would lead to the followers
of the board or show who the other follower
was. When I clicked in another area and it
led to the “Artisims” board. This proves to be
very confusing for the user.
3
Following Section
Pinterest.com/user
/followers
Error Prevention
Consistency
The following section my personal profile
was too crowded, and didn’t respond to
interactions. The following section showed
me who the people I am following, with the
ability to unfollow these users. Upon
unfollowing many users the screen did not
update. There were then many users visible
both with “Follow” and “Unfollow” buttons.

This made it annoying trying to find other
users that I wanted to unfollow. Even when
refreshed, the users unfollowed remained in
the “following” section.
4 Error Prevention When I joined pinterest, I connected my
twitter account, but not my facebook account
for privacy. When I tried to find his twitter
friends, I was told to refresh the page, due to
an error. I was not able to find friends until he
refreshed for the third time.
5
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
After clicking on a pin, I hovered over share
button to get the options I wanted to see
appear, I then changed my mind and then
wanted to view my likes, the options
remained until I changed screen. This was
annoying because the options happened to
block another function on the Pinterest.com
screen.
6
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
I clicked on an image, trying find the image
source, discovered a page which showed
multiple posts ‘Pinned from: thefancy.com.”
When clicked “thefancy.com” it was found
that it wasn’t a link, just text, thus not able to
find the image source, even though it
appeared to be a link.
7
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Speak the user’s
language
I tried adding a new pin and found a major
problem. When the popup
dialogue to add a
new pin appeared, I selected a pdf, to share
with people. When I clicked upload I was
taken to the next screen to add more details
and a caption to the upload. When I clicked
pin, I was given the following message. “You
need to upload an image or provide the
'image_url' parameter.” This error appeared
far too late, and was quite a confusing
message as I did not understand what a
parameter was. Before uploading it should
have stated that I could only upload images.
8
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
I found that I couldn’t scroll down to view
older entries and that there was no link
provided to view older entries in the recent
activity section. I find this annoying as I

(Pinterest.com) wanted to see my most popular pins.
9
Other Users Profile
and Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Prevent Errors
Efficiency of Use
Blocking another was a major problem
exposed. After blocking somebody, and
returning to the previous page, the blocking
menu didn’t go away. Upon refreshing the
page, and it still wouldn’t go away, it also
stayed when clicking on to the Pinterest
Homepage. In order to get rid of this, I had to
closed the tab and another opened to
continue using Pinterest without obstruction.
10 Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Minimize the
user’s memory
load
Unblocking was also a large problem as
there was no list of users blocked. In order to
unblock a user, I had to go to their profile,
and click the unblock button. This was a
problem, as I had to remember the user’s
name in order to type it into a search bar.
This could be avoided by having a list of
remembering the user’s name, it was
impossible to navigate to their profile due to a
system error.
# Problem
Location
Violated Heuristic Problem Description
1
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Upon clicking a link to a
dashboard, I found when she
pressed this link all it served to do
was reload the page that I was
already on, instead of leading to
the board of another user.
2
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
I also had problems trying to
upload pins, as when I clicked the
pin button it did not work. I had to
press the button twice in order to
get it to carry out the function that it
was supposed to.
3
Other User’s Profile
Consistency
the top, in order to get this feature

user)
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
back I had to press the back button
three times. This involves too
many clicks for just this one
purpose.
4
Pop up window on
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Minimalist Design
When I press the follow button on
a page after I have repinned
it’s
post the window closes and if I
want to view the dashboard I have
to open it again myself. This also
involves too many clicks.
5
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
I received an invitation to join a
group board for pins and when I
clicked “yes” a pop up window
appeared which told me that I was
unable to accept the invitation due
to an error.
6
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
When trying to comment on a pin, I
had to click the button several
times to get it to carry out its
times, I just resorted to not
commenting on pins as I found the
fact that the button didn’t work to
be very irritating.
7
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Like Colin, I also had problems
with the find friends option on
Pinterest. But unlike Colin,
refreshing the page did not make it
work, I had to leave it for a few
minutes and come back to it.
8
Recent activity
screen on left hand
side of Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
When looking through the recent
activity screen I had problems
trying to get back to look at older
information.

Samantha Berry 10103988
# Problem Location Violated Heuristic Problem
Description
1
Window on Homepage
(Pinterest)
Error Prevention
Consistency
A window popped up
in which it asked if I
wanted to download a
mobile version of the
site and the window
was only exited after
repeated clicking of
the ‘x’
2
Recent Activity window
(Pinterest)
Consistency When clicking on
who follows a board if
more than one
person is following it,
it shows you the first
followers page rather
than who the other
followers are.
3
Others Profiles
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Consistency
No categories
available.
4 Popup
windows
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Consistency
Windows close and
need to be opened
again and again
5
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention Tabs showing
options to share a pin
is a hover over and
doesn’t go away after
you remove your
mouse
6
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
When attempting
commenting, a butten
needs to be presses
several times over to
carry out its function.

7
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Speak the user’s
language
Before uploading a
file, it does not
specify what type of
files are allowed on
the page and alerts
you far too late, after
you’ve added names
and tags etc. to the
file that it is a wrong
or invalid file.
Appendix [N]
Unified Table of Problems
# Problem
Location
Violated Heuristic Problem Description Severity
1
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
Clicked an image, trying find
the image source, discovered
a page which showed multiple
posts ‘Pinned from:
thefancy.com.” When clicked
“thefancy.com” it was found
that it wasn’t a link, just text,
thus not able to find the image
source, even though it
appeared to be a link.
3
2
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
On the other side of the
screen when problem 1
occurred, a clickable button
was discovered which said
“thefancy.com,” It was
clicked, hoping to find the
image source, except it led to
the homepage of
“thefancy.com” instead of the
image source that the user
was looking for. It was also
confusing to have multiple
sightings of “thefancy.com” on
the one page, thus confusing
2

the user as to their meanings.
3
Other Users
Profile and
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Prevent Errors
Efficiency of Use
problem exposed. After
blocking somebody, and
returning to the previous page,
the blocking menu didn’t go
away. Upon refreshing the
page, and it still wouldn’t go
away, it also stayed when
clicking on to the Pinterest
Homepage. In order to get rid
of this, the tab had to be
closed and another opened to
continue using Pinterest
without obstruction.
2
4
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Minimize the user’s
memory load
problem as there was no list
of users blocked. In order to
unblock a user, one had to go
to their profile, and click the
unblock button. This was a
problem, as a user had to
remember the user’s name in
order to type it into a search
bar. This could be avoided by
having a list of people a user
has blocked. Upon
remembering the user’s
name, it was impossible to
navigate to their profile due to
a system error.
3
5
User’s Own
Profile/
Following Section
Pinterest.com/use
r/followers
Error Prevention
Consistency
The following section on a
users’ personal profile was
too crowded, and didn’t
respond to interactions. The
following section showed a
user who they were following,
with the ability to unfollow
users. Upon unfollowing many
users the screen did not
update. There are now many
users visible both with
“Follow” and “Unfollow”
buttons. This made it
3

annoying trying to find other
users that one wanted to
unfollow. Even when
refreshed, the users
6
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Speak the user’s
language
Adding a new pin also
provided several problems.
Though Colin found the
biggest problem. When the
popup
pin appeared, selected a pdf,
to share with people. When
“Upload” was clicked a user
was taken to the next screen
to add more details and a
caption to the upload. When
pin was clicked, the user was
given the following message.
“You need to upload an image
or provide the 'image_url'
parameter.” This error
appeared far too late, and was
quite a confusing message.
Before uploading it should
have stated that a user could
only upload images.
4
7
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Emma also had problems
trying to upload pins, as when
she clicked the pin button it
did not work. She had to
press the button twice in order
to get it to carry out the
function that it was supposed
to.
2
8
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
caused problems, Emma
received an invitation to join a
group board, but when she
clicked “Yes” an error
occurred and she was not
able to join that board. When
another invitation was sent,
the same error occured.
3

9
Find Friends
(Pinterest.com/fin
d_friends/)
Error Prevention
The finding friends option
through other social mediums
also caused problems. When
Colin joined pinterest, he
connected his twitter account,
but not his facebook account
for privacy. When he tried to
find his twitter friends, he was
told to refresh the page, due
to an error. He was not able to
find friends until he refreshed
for the third time. Emma and
Rachel also had this problem
except refreshing did not work
for them, they had to wait a
few minutes before trying
again.
3
10
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
In the recent activity section,
Colin clicked on “Nick
Matthews and 1 other followed
your board Artisims”, and it
led to Nick’s profile, while
Colin was hoping that it would
lead to the followers of the
board or show who the other
follower was. He then clicked
in another area and it led to
the “Artisims” board. This
proves to be very confusing
for the user.
2
11
Pop up Dialogue
on Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Unfollow button grayed out,
which confused Colin as to
whether the function had been
carried out or not, until it
changed to a red follow button
1 second later. Colin was
using Pinterest.com on his
laptop, and saw an option to
updgrade to the newer version
of Pinterest, upon clicking on
it, it automatically upgraded.
This got even more confusing
as the unfollow button was
harder to find and took longer
to change. It no longer
2

changed to a red follow
button, but also a grayed out
version of the previous follow
button. This involves too
much clicking to carry out the
unfollow function in
Pinterest.com.
12
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Clicked on a pin, Colin
hovered over share button to
get the options he wanted to
see appear, he then changed
his mind and then wanted to
view his likes, the options
remained until he changed
screen. This can be annoying
for the user if the options
happened to block another
function on the Pinterest.com
screen.
2
13
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
Recent activity, two members
of our group found that they
couldn’t scroll down to view
older entries and that there
was no link provided to view
older entries. This was
annoying for the user who
didn’t use Pinterest that
frequently and wanted to
refresh their memory, or see
their most popular pins.
1
14
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Upon clicking a link to a
dashboard, Emma found
when she pressed this link all
it served to do was reload the
page that she was already on,
instead of leading to the board
of another user.
2
15
Other Users
Profile
(Pinterest.com/oth
eruser)
Homepage
Consistency
When on a dashboard of
another user the categories
are not able at the top, Emma
had to press the back button
three times in order to get this
feature back. This involves too
1

(Pinterest.com) many clicks for just this one
purpose.
16
Popup
window on
Hompage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Minimalist Design
When you press follow button
on a page after you have
repinned
it’s post, the
window closes. Emma
wanted to view this profile
after she had followed it and
she had to open the window
up again herself. This also
involves too many clicks.
1
17
Pop Up Dialogue
on Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
When trying to comment on a
pin, Emma had to click the
button several times to get it
to carry out its function. As it
happened a few times, Emma
just resorted to not
commenting on pins as she
found the fact that the button
didn’t work to be very irritating.
1
18
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com
Error Prevention
Consistency
Clicked “X” on window, which
asked whether the user
wanted to download a mobile
application version of
Pinterest, and it reappeared.
When Colin clicked “X” the
first time and this did nothing,
it was only after he had
pressed the button several
times that it actually carried
out it’s function. It later came
back, and Colin had to click it
again.
1
Unified Table of Problems
# Problem Location Violated Problem Description Average

Heuristic Severity
1
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
Clicked an image, trying find the
image source, discovered a page
which showed multiple posts
‘Pinned from: thefancy.com.” When
clicked “thefancy.com” it was found
that it wasn’t a link, just text, thus
not able to find the image source,
even though it appeared to be a link.
1
2
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
On the other side of the screen
when problem 1 occurred, a
clickable button was discovered
which said “thefancy.com,” It was
clicked, hoping to find the image
source, except it led to the
homepage of “thefancy.com”
instead of the image source that the
user was looking for. It was also
confusing to have multiple sightings
of “thefancy.com” on the one page,
thus confusing the user as to their
meanings.
2
3
Other Users Profile
and Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Efficiency of Use
problem exposed. After blocking
somebody, and returning to the
previous page, the blocking menu
didn’t go away. Upon refreshing the
page, and it still wouldn’t go away, it
also stayed when clicking on to the
Pinterest Homepage. In order to get
rid of this, the tab had to be closed
and another opened to continue
using Pinterest without obstruction.
3
4
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Minimize the
user’s memory
load
problem as there was no list of
users blocked. In order to unblock a
user, one had to go to their profile,
and click the unblock button. This
was a problem, as a user had to
remember the user’s name in order
to type it into a search bar. This
could be avoided by having a list of
3

remembering the user’s name, it
was impossible to navigate to their
profile due to a system error.
5
Following Section
Pinterest.com/user/f
ollowers
Error Prevention
Consistency
The following section on a users’
personal profile was too crowded,
and didn’t respond to interactions.
The following section showed a
user who they were following, with
the ability to unfollow users. Upon
unfollowing many users the screen
did not update. There are now many
users visible both with “Follow” and
“Unfollow” buttons. This made it
annoying trying to find other users
that one wanted to unfollow. Even
when refreshed, the users
3
6
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Speak the user’s
language
Adding a new pin also provided
several problems. Though Colin
found the biggest problem. When
the popup
pin appeared, selected a pdf, to
share with people. When “Upload”
was clicked a user was taken to the
next screen to add more details and
a caption to the upload. When pin
was clicked, the user was given the
following message. “You need to
upload an image or provide the
'image_url' parameter.” This error
appeared far too late, and was quite
a confusing message. Before
uploading it should have stated that
a user could only upload images.
4
7
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Emma also had problems trying to
upload pins, as when she clicked
the pin button it did not work. She
had to press the button twice in
order to get it to carry out the
function that it was supposed to.
3
caused problems, Emma received

8
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
an invitation to join a group board,
but when she clicked “Yes” an error
occurred and she was not able to
join that board. When another
invitation was sent, the same error
occured.
4
9
Find Friends
(Pinterest.com/find_f
riends/)
Error Prevention
The finding friends option through
other social mediums also caused
problems. When Colin joined
pinterest, he connected his twitter
account, but not his facebook
account for privacy. When he tried
to find his twitter friends, he was
told to refresh the page, due to an
error. He was not able to find friends
until he refreshed for the third time.
Emma and Rachel also had this
problem except refreshing did not
work for them, they had to wait a
few minutes before trying again.
4
10
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
In the recent activity section, Colin
clicked on “Nick Matthews and 1
other followed your board Artisims”,
and it led to Nick’s profile, while
Colin was hoping that it would lead
to the followers of the board or
show who the other follower was.
He then clicked in another area and
it led to the “Artisims” board. This
proves to be very confusing for the
user.
2
11
Pop up Dialogue on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Unfollow button grayed out, which
confused Colin as to whether the
function had been carried out or not,
until it changed to a red follow
button 1 second later. Colin was
using Pinterest.com on his laptop,
and saw an option to updgrade to
the newer version of Pinterest, upon
clicking on it, it automatically
upgraded. This got even more
confusing as the unfollow button
was harder to find and took longer
to change. It no longer changed to a
3

red follow button, but also a grayed
out version of the previous follow
button. This involves too much
clicking to carry out the unfollow
function in Pinterest.com.
12
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Clicked on a pin, Colin hovered over
share button to get the options he
wanted to see appear, he then
changed his mind and then wanted
to view his likes, the options
remained until he changed screen.
This can be annoying for the user if
the options happened to block
another function on the
Pinterest.com screen.
3
13
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
Recent activity, two members of our
group found that they couldn’t scroll
down to view older entries and that
there was no link provided to view
older entries. This was annoying for
the user who didn’t use Pinterest
that frequently and wanted to
refresh their memory, or see their
most popular pins.
2
14
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
Upon clicking a link to a dashboard,
Emma found when she pressed
this link all it served to do was
reload the page that she was
already on, instead of leading to the
board of another user.
2
15
Other Users Profile
user)
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
the top, Emma had to press the
back button three times in order to
get this feature back. This involves
too many clicks for just this one
purpose.
3

16
Popup
window on
Hompage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Minimalist Design
When you press follow button on a
page after you have repinned
it’s
post, the window closes. Emma
wanted to view this profile after she
had followed it and she had to open
the window up again herself. This
also involves too many clicks.
1
17
Pop Up Dialogue on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention
When trying to comment on a pin,
Emma had to click the button
several times to get it to carry out its
times, Emma just resorted to not
commenting on pins as she found
the fact that the button didn’t work to
be very irritating.
3
18
Pop up window on
Homepage
(Pinterest.com
Error Prevention
Consistency
Clicked “X” on window, which asked
whether the user wanted to
download a mobile application
version of Pinterest, and it
reappeared.
When Colin clicked
“X” the first time and this did
nothing, it was only after he had
pressed the button several times
that it actually carried out it’s
function. It later came back, and
Colin had to click it again.
3
#
Problem Location
Violated Heuristic
Problem
Description
1
Find Friends
(Pinterest.com/find_fr
iends/)
Error Prevention When I started my
pinterest I connected
my facebook to make
it easier to find
frineds boards.
However this proved
difficult as I kept
having to refresh the
page.

2
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
User Control and
Freedom
Flexibility
It took too long to load
posts when scrolling
down and the
navigation through
posts was not laid out
well as there was no
option to view old
posts by date,
meaning it took too
long to find any old
posts.
3
Recent Activity
window on
Homepage
[Left Hand side]
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Email notification
recieved from
pinterest of two new
followers. When I
clicked the email
hoping to see who
second follower was I
was brought through
to first followers
profile, had to check
followers list to see
second
4
Following Section
Pinterest.com/user/fo
llowers
Error Prevention
Consistency
When unfollowing
unwanted boards the
follow button was
slow to update
meaning it was hard
to tell who had
already been
unfollowed and time
was wasted clicking
the button to unfollow
people twice
5
Home Page
(Pinterest.com)
Error Prevention When trying to add a
pin using the pin
button the button was
slow to respond and
took several clicks to
work.
6
Home Page
Error Prevention
When I invited a
friend to be able to
pin to one of my

(Pinterest.com)
boards they recieved
an error message
and were unable to
pin to it
7
Homepage
(Pinterest.com)
Consistency
Speak Users
Language
When looking for the
source of an image I
was brought to a blog
of random photos
and could not find the
real source of the
image.

Human Computer Interaction - Heuristic Evaluation

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