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Cox, D. (1998)
Supporting Results Synthesis in Heuristic Evaluation. Master’s thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, November.
Type: Masters thesis. Note: Cox was under my supervision.

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Abstract.
This thesis defnes results synthesis as a process and as an area of research within Heuristic Evaluation. Results synthesis is the process of creating a complete, coherent, and concise statement of the problems in an interface and their possible solutions from a collection of raw problem descriptions generated by a Heuristic Evaluation inspection. My research focuses on results synthesis as a participatory practice in environments supporting emergence. On the basis of observing groups performing results synthesis in paper-based environments, I generated a “typical” scenario describing the process of results synthesis. Based on my review of the relevant literature and my observations, I put forth a set of requirements for any environment supporting results synthesis. These requirements are used as the basis for designing a real-time distributed groupware system to support results synthesis. The system is refned and found to be usable in an iterative formative evaluation.