Heuristic Evaluation of the User Interface of the Islamic world Science Citation Database

The study was carried out to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the user interface of the Islamic World Science Citation (ISC) in the Iranian Science Citation Index. The method was a qualitative and applied one. To do this heuristic research, a checklist consisting of Nielson's (Pierotti, 2009), Cherry et al (Lancaster, 1997) and Gulliver’s (2002) checklists was developed and used. The sampling was a purposeful and non-probabilistic one. The assessment was carried out by 6 specialists in the fields of library and information science, and computer science. The results showed that, in ISC وout of 83 items for the 8 components of the checklist, only 21 items (%25. 3) were correct and there were some problems with the other 62 items (%74. 69). The components “General Design and Aesthetic Aspects” and “Imposing Restriction”, in which 50 percent of the evaluation criteria were observed, were among the most compatible ones with the checklist criteria. The results also showed that the greatest severity of problems was related to the components “Document Retrieval”, “Search” and “Imposing Restriction” with the mean of 2. 6 out of 5. In general, the results confirmed the weakness of the ISC interface related to the assessment criteria.