This week we looked at Jakob Neislon’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. These are general principles for interaction design, they are called “heuristics” because they are used to evaluate the usability of a system, rather than strict guidelines or formal rules.
“Heuristic UX evaluation is ananalytic evaluation method basedon expert UX inspection in whichthe evaluator compares aspects ofthe design against a set ofheuristics, general high- level UXdesign guidelines.” - The UX Book: Agile UX Design for a Quality User Experience
The design should always keep users informed about whats going on.
Use phrases that feel like it is a conversation, avoid jargon.
When users make mistake, they need a clearly marked emergency exit to undo or leave unwanted action without an extended process
Use the same words to avoid the user thinking different words mean different things if you don't intend them to.
Prevent as much error prone conditions as possible.
Users may forget quickly, information required to use the design (e.g. field labels or menu items) should be visible or easily retrievable when needed.
Use Shortcuts, speeds up interactions for expert users