Designing usability/user experience heuristics to evaluate e-assessments administered to children

The application of electronic assessments (e-assessments) has increased, particularly among elementary-school-aged children. Paper-based assessments are frequently converted into digital formats for efficiency gains, with little thought given to their user experience (UX) and usability. Individual differences, particularly among young children, can inhibit test-takers from completing the assessment tasks that are not designed to match their needs and abilities. Consequently, studies have raised concerns about the generalizability and fairness of e-assessments. Whereas heuristic evaluation is a standard method for evaluating and enhancing the efficacy of a product with respect to a set of guidelines, more information is needed about its added value when designing e-assessments for children. This paper synthesizes heuristics on the basis of the literature and expert judgments to accommodate children's abilities for interacting with e-assessment platforms. We present a final set of 10 heuristics, validated and refined by applying a heuristic evaluation workshop and collecting 24 expert surveys. The results indicate that the derived heuristics can help evaluate the UX and usability-related aspects of e-assessments with 6- to 12-year-old children. Moreover, the present paper proposes recommendations for a framework for developing usability/UX heuristics that can be used to help researchers develop domain-specific heuristics in the future.