In this study we conducted a heuristic evaluation on a user interface. It was conducted in accordance to Nielsen’s theory of heuristics. The user interface that we evaluated is that of the Swedish national library database LIBRIS. The purpose of this study was to create a knowledge base for the development of LIBRIS’s user interface. The study was conducted by using three of Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics. Visibility of system status, Match between system and the real world and Aesthetic and minimalist design. The evaluation was done by three evaluators that conducted it independently and separately from each other. All of them had prior knowledge or experience in the field of human-computer interaction. This study shows that most of the usability problems was found under the criteria Aesthetic and minimalist design. The problems found under this heuristic was also the most severe. In total 37 usability problems were found.

This thesis is a case study of the search function on the University of Uppsala’s web site. The search function in this study was chosen since it exists on a large and complex web site and there were apparent lacks in the old version of the search function. The thesis highlights some of the problems that can appear in the development of a search function on a local site. One interesting find is that one of the most difficult issues is organizational and not technical. Without a common strategy how to handle information is it very difficult to make good searches on the web site. / Den här uppsatsen är en fallstudie av Uppsala Universitets sökfunktion. Sökfunktionen i studien valdes för att den finns på en stor och komplex webbplats som tillhör en motsvarande stor och komplex organisation och eftersom det fanns tydliga brister i den äldre versionen av sökfunktion. Uppsatsen belyser en del av de svårigheter som man kan stöta på när man bygger en lokal sökfunktion för den typen av webbplats. Bland annat så verkar de största svårigheterna inte vara tekniska, utan organisatoriska. Utan en gemensam strategi för hur man ska hantera information är det svårt att göra bra sökningar på webbplatsen.