Expert evaluations can save a considerable amount of resources before conducting evaluations with actual users. UX empirical evaluations with actual users/consumers are critical but time-consuming and costly.

Basically, in a heuristic evaluation, an expert predicts potential problems based on his/her experience before putting a prototype in the hands of a user/consumer. Let’s imagine that you want to develop a guide for heuristic evaluations within your company (or a company/product of your preference) to evaluate primary packaging’s user experience. The guide is going to be used by packaging designers and packaging engineers. Your objective is to characterize your potential users/consumers and to develop a heuristic guide. The guide should consider the three components of UX and all the potential tasks that your package should allow.

• A picture and a description of the type of product for which the guide will be used (i.e., packaging for pocket knives, packaging for medical devices, etc.) (see rubric).
• Define the potential users/consumers of this product (see rubric).
• A list of questions to evaluate the UX of primary packaging (see rubric).
• Please be as concise as possible but specific so others can understand Here is an example of what it should look like
• For the purpose of this discussion, I will be evaluating the user interface of a primary packaging for a medical device, Impulse Generator (IPG). In medical device packaging, there usually two types of user interface. This would include manufacturing and nurse technicians or patients. I will evaluate using nurse technicians as the primary customer interface. According to DataUSA, registered nurse technicians would be majority female of over 80% and male under 20%. The typical age range would be between 25-55 for nurse technicians, average age of male is 42 and average age of female is 43. This would mean that typically the user interface would be a middle-aged female who is trained/registered that would be interacting with the medical device packaging.The primary package of this IPG would be in 2 thermoformed trays and 2 Tyvek lid to make up a double or dual sterile barrier system. The Inner Tyvek Lid would be sealed to the inner tray for a inner tray assembly then placed inside an outer tray and then sealed with an outer Tyvek lid to complete the double sterile barrier system. The purpose of the double sterile barrier system is to transfer the inner tray assembly into the sterile field. Typically, the nurse technician would peel up the Tyvek lid from the outer tray assembly and transfer the inner tray assembly to the sterile field before breaking the seal open. The Inner Tray assembly would be opened in the sterile area and the device would be exposed in sterile field or surgery room. Along with the IPG, additional sterile accessories will be provided for the surgeon, seen in Figure 1.With medical device packaging, packaging design is typically driven by standards and regulations, specifically ISO 11607. When designing a medical device package and within mind the standards, packaging engineer must ask themselves the usability, utility, and emotional impact of the user.Utility Interface: What would be the seal strength of the Tray Assembly? Did the tray protect the device? Did the tray remain sterile? Is the tray to difficult to handle when peeling the Tyvek lid away? Can the tray be safely handled when transferring the products to the sterile field? Should same material be used as current commercial products that are similar in design? Does the design have impact to the sterilization methods and OQPQ validations?Emotional Interface: Does the sterile barrier tray communicate where to open? Is the tray easy to open? Does the tray identify which product it is from the product label? Does the tray communicate the product is sterile? Is the primary packaging completely different than other medical device’s primary package?Usability Interface: Can the tray be aseptically transferred safely? Does the tray protect the products? Does the tray maintain its sterile barrier integrity? Can the user peel open the tray or does it require additional tools to open? Does the tray have a location where the tray can be opened from only one place?Figure 1: