Stop 06 · Design Collaboration & UXTopics · 6/10

Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics

In short

Jakob Nielsen wrote ten rules of thumb in the 1990s, and they still catch most usability problems today. Learn them once and you'll spot broken screens everywhere, whatever your role.

Jakob Nielsen's widely-used checklist — visibility of system status, match with the real world, user control, consistency, error prevention, and more — for quickly auditing any interface.

The jaadu, as a doctor with a stethoscope, gives a friendly check-up to a big smiling phone.

Think of it like this

The doctor's routine check-up

A good doctor doesn't guess. She checks pulse, BP, temperature and eyes in the same order every time, so nothing gets missed. The ten heuristics are your check-up list for any app or website.

Watch it happen

The ten heuristics, one by one

Status

Real world

Control

Consistency

Prevent errors

Recognise

Flexibility

Minimalist

Recover

Help

1/51. Visibility of system status: always show what's happening. 2. Match the real world: use words and order people already know.

The big ideas

What you need to know

A checklist, not a law

Heuristics are rules of thumb. They help you find likely problems fast, but real users still have the final word.

Prevent beats fix

Greying out invalid dates is better than a great error message after someone picks one.

Recognition is easier

Showing recent searches beats asking people to remember what they typed last week.

Shared language

Saying 'this breaks consistency' is clearer than 'I don't like it'. Teams can discuss and agree faster.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Treating the heuristics as a replacement for testing with real people.

Do this instead

Use them for a quick first review, then test with users to find problems experts miss.

Oops

Citing a heuristic number without explaining the actual problem.

Do this instead

Describe what goes wrong for the user, then name the heuristic it breaks.

Your mission

Check-up of a real app

~30 min

Quick check

A form lets you type any date, then shows 'Invalid date' after submit. Which heuristic would have avoided this best?

Go deeper

1Memorize the 10 heuristics well enough to name 5 without looking.
2Audit an app you use against all 10 heuristics and note violations.
3Practice giving feedback framed around a specific heuristic, not a vague opinion.