Exploring the Use of Heuristics for Evaluation of an Immersive Analytic System

Heuristics are a discount method for expert evaluation of systems. They help to identify usability problems in and can serve as guidelines for design and development, pending more formal testing and evaluation. As a new field, immersive analytics has not yet developed a set of common-practices or guidelines that might be coalesced into heuristics designed specifically for the field. This paper reviews the Nielsen usability heuristics as a starting point for the evaluation of immersive analytic systems. We present GeoVisor, an immersive analytic system in virtual reality for geographic visualization and abstract visualization of data, and use it as the target of our evaluation. We find the majority of the Nielson heuristics provide useful insight into the issues we have encountered during GeoVisor’s development. Tellingly, some of our current issues in GeoVisor revolve around areas where Nielsen’s heuristics do not provide direct guidance. This indicates areas where these heuristics need to be modified to adapt to the development of immersive analytic systems, as well as areas for further research into abstract visualization of data in immersive environments.