🖥️ Usability Heuristics

Definition and Importance

• Usability heuristics are general principles or guidelines (rules of thumb) that designers and usability experts use to assess and enhance the user-friendliness and overall usability of products like websites and applications.
• Quotes Highlighting Importance:
  • “The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it.”
  • “Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”
  • “In average when you ask someone to perform a task on a site, they cannot do it. It's not their fault; it's the designer's fault.” — Jakob Nielsen

🧑‍🔬 Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics

1. Visibility of System Status

• Principle: The system should consistently inform users about its current state through timely and appropriate feedback.
  • Purpose: Ensures users can always see the system's status, understand its current state, and receive immediate feedback on their actions.
  • Examples:
    • Progress bars
    • Navigation cues

2. Match Between System and the Real World

• Principle: Interfaces should align with users' real-world experiences and expectations.
  • Purpose: Use familiar concepts, language, and conventions to create a seamless and intuitive user experience.
  • Examples:
    • Visual Metaphors: Icons and images representing real-world objects, e.g., a trash can icon for deleting files.
    • Use of Familiar Language:
      • Technical Jargon: Debit, Account balance reconciliation, Transaction processing, Authorization
      • Familiar Language: Withdrawal, Check balance, Make a payment, Approval

3. User Control and Freedom

• Principle: Allow users to feel in control of the interface and provide flexibility to undo or redo actions.
  • Good Practices:
    • Allow users to go back a step.
    • Meet users' expectations with back links.
    • Allow users to easily cancel an action.
    • Support undo functionality.
  • Examples:
    • Bad Practice: On Delta’s app, users can't move back to the list of flights without starting over.
    • Good Practice: CVS e-commerce allows users to undo adding an item to the basket by selecting "Remove."

4. Consistency and Standards

• Principle: Maintain uniformity and predictability throughout the interface.
  • Purpose: Use consistent colors, typography, icons, and layout across the interface.
  • Examples:
    • Bad Practice: Inconsistent button position in Sutter Health appointment check-in process.
    • Good Practice: Adobe Acrobat's consistent contextual menus.

5. Error Prevention

• Principle: Design interfaces to reduce the likelihood of users making mistakes and provide mechanisms to correct errors.
  • Key Strategies:
    • Clear instructions
    • Confirmation prompts before irreversible actions
    • Validation of user inputs in real-time

6. Recognition Rather than Recall

• Principle: Make interfaces more user-friendly by presenting information or options rather than forcing users to recall them from memory.
  • Key Aspects:
    • Menu Navigation: Clear and accessible navigation menus or icons.
    • History and Favorites: Access to recently used items or marking favorites.

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

• Principle: Cater to both novice and experienced users, allowing task accomplishment in ways suitable to their expertise.
  • Key Aspects:
    • Customization: Personalize interface settings.
    • Shortcuts: Provide shortcuts for repetitive tasks.
    • Adaptability: Adjust interfaces to user proficiency levels.

8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design