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Heuristic evaluation is a tool comprised of 10 principles that are used to recognize and classify problems in usability. This can be used in any phase of the design process to inspect the usability of the system or product. Below you fill find the list of ten heuristics and an example of this method.
The 10 Heuristics (Nielsen, 2020):
Visibility of system status
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Consistency and standards
Error prevention
Recognition rather than recall
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Help and documentation
Example
Research Question: How usable is the Target mobile application according to the ten heuristics in heuristic evaluation?
This is a heuristic evaluation that was done while using the Target mobile application. In the left column, you will find each heuristic. In the right column, you will find examples of violations or successful use of these usability principles.
Things to remember:
Heuristic evaluations can be used as a first step in identifying usability issues and can be used with other methods that can examine these issues more closely.
The use of multiple heuristic evaluations may be useful to obtain richer data and provides opportunity for comparison across heuristic evaluations.
Reviewers who conduct heuristic evaluations will need some experience and/or knowledge of these heuristics and what they mean.
Due to the broad definitions of some heuristics, some usability issues can overlap with more than one heuristic.
Pros:
Easy and quick to execute
Low cost
Cons:
Some principles are too general
Issues are subjective to the evaluator
References:
Nielsen, J. (2020). 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
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