Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues. Evaluators use established heuristics (e.g., Nielsen-Molich’s) and reveal insights that can help design teams enhance product usability from early in development.

“By their very nature, heuristic shortcuts will produce biases.”

— Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

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Learn how to guide effective designs using heuristic evaluation.

Heuristic Evaluation: Ten Commandments for Helpful Expert Analysis

In 1990, web usability pioneers Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich published the landmark article “Improving a Human-Computer Dialogue”. It contained a set of principles—or heuristics—which industry specialists soon began to adopt to assess interfaces in human-computer interaction. A heuristic is a fast and practical way to solve problems or make decisions.

In user experience (UX) design, professional evaluators use heuristic evaluation to determine a design’s/product’s usability systematically. As experts, they go through a checklist of criteria to find flaws that design teams overlook. The Nielsen-Molich heuristics state that a system should:

1. Keep users informed about its statusappropriately and promptly.
2. Show informationin ways users understand from how the real world operates, and in the users’ language.
3. Offer users control and let them undo errors easily.
4. Be consistent so users aren’t confused over what different words, icons, etc. mean.
5. Prevent errors – a system should either avoid conditions where errors arise or warn usersbefore they take risky actions (e.g., “Are you sure you want to do this?” messages).
6. Have visible information, instructions, etc. to let users recognize options, actions, etc. instead of forcing them to rely on memory.
7. Be flexible so experienced users find faster ways to attain goals.
8. Have no clutter, containing only relevant information for current tasks.
9. Provide plain-language help regarding errors and solutions.
10. List concise steps in lean, searchable documentation for overcoming problems.

Heuristic Evaluation: Pros and Cons

When you apply the Nielsen-Molich heuristics as an expert, you have powerful tools to measure a design’s usability. However, like any method, there are pros and cons:

Pros of Heuristic Evaluation

• Heuristics can help highlight potential usability issues early in the design process.
• It is a fast and inexpensive tool compared with other methods involving real users.

Cons of Heuristic Evaluation

• Heuristic evaluation depends on the knowledge and expertise of the evaluators. Training the evaluators or hiring external evaluators might increase the time and money required for conducting the evaluation.
• Heuristic evaluation is based on assumptions about what “good” usability is. As heuristics are based on research, this is often true. However, the evaluations are no substitute for testing with real users. These are, as the name suggests, only guidelines, and not rules that are set in stone.
• Heuristic evaluation can end up giving false alarms. In their article, “Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation: A head-to-head comparison,” Robert Bailey, Robert Allan and P. Raiello found that 43% of 'problems' identified by experimental heuristic evaluations were not actually problems. Furthermore, evaluators could only identify 21% of genuine usability problems in comparison with usability testing.

A vital point is that heuristic evaluation, however helpful, is no substitute for usability testing.

How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

To conduct a heuristic evaluation, you can follow these steps:

1. Know what to test andhow – Whether it’s the entire product or one procedure, clearly define the parameters of what to test and the objective.
2. Know your usersand have clear definitions of the target audience’s goals, contexts, etc. User personas can help evaluators see things from the users’ perspectives.
3. Select 3–5 evaluators, ensuring their expertise in usability and the relevant industry.
4. Define the heuristics (around 5–10) – This will depend on the nature of the system/product/design. Consider adopting/adapting the Nielsen-Molich heuristics and/or using/defining others.
5. Brief evaluators on what to cover in a selection of tasks, suggesting a scale of severity codes (e.g., critical) to flag issues.
6. 1st Walkthrough – Have evaluators use the product freely so they can identify elements to analyze.
7. 2nd Walkthrough – Evaluators scrutinize individual elements according to the heuristics. They also examine how these fit into the overall design, clearly recording all issues encountered.
8. Debrief evaluators in a session so they can collate results for analysis and suggest fixes.

Learn More about Heuristic Evaluation

Find the refined Nielsen heuristics in the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design article.

Questions related to Heuristic Evaluation

When writing a heuristic evaluation report:

1. Start with a brief overview of the product or interface assessed and list the applied heuristics.
2. For each usability issue identified, explicitly state the violated heuristic, describe where it occurs in the interface, and explain its impact on user experience.
3. Provide specific recommendations to address each issue and prioritize them based on their severity to user experience.
4. Include visual aids like screenshots to help clarify the location and nature of the problems found.

For comprehensive insights and detailed instructions on conducting heuristic evaluations and writing practical reports, refer to How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation.

Heuristic evaluation differs from usability testing as it involves experts evaluating a product's user interface against established heuristics pinpointing usability issues, while usability testing involves real users completing tasks and identifying issues within the product. Heuristic evaluations are quicker and cost-effective, providing early insights, while usability testing offers an in-depth understanding of user interactions and experiences. For a comprehensive overview of usability testing, watch this video:

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Heuristic evaluation is vital as it efficiently identifies usability problems in the design phase of product development, saving time and resources. Employing experts to review products against usability principles helps enhance user satisfaction and interaction and ensures a product's design is intuitive and user-friendly. This method is cost-effective and quick, making it a fundamental step in achieving optimal user experience and interface design.

An example of heuristic evaluation is when usability experts assess a website or application against established usability principles, or heuristics, to identify potential user experience issues. For instance, experts might evaluate the system's visibility of system status, user control, and freedom or match between the system and the real world. These evaluations help in uncovering usability problems early in the design process. For a detailed procedure for conducting a heuristic evaluation, refer to this article: How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation.

Compared to other methods, heuristic evaluation is a cost-effective and efficient way to determine design usability issues.

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However, as discussed in the video, it may not be as effective as testing with real users when it comes to understanding the user experience fully. Heuristic evaluations, performed by experts, assess whether solutions conform to established usability guidelines, providing critical insights, especially in the early stages of design. Nonetheless, optimal outcomes usually result from combining this method with user testing, allowing designers to address expert opinions and real user experiences effectively.

To conduct a heuristic evaluation in UI, select a set of heuristics or guidelines like Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics. Next, assemble a group of usability experts and assign them to evaluate the interface independently, identifying issues that violate the chosen heuristics. Compile the found issues, prioritize them based on severity, and generate a report detailing the problems and suggested improvements. This article, How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation, provides a comprehensive guide on effectively performing heuristic evaluations in UI design.

Start conducting your own heuristic evaluations with the help of this template:

A weakness of heuristic analysis is its reliance on experts’ judgments, which may not accurately reflect user experiences and can overlook user-centric issues. While cost-effective, this method might miss problems identified through user testing, leading to unresolved potential usability issues. The subjective nature of heuristic evaluation can result in varied findings among evaluators, necessitating thorough analysis to discern the most critical usability concerns. Despite these limitations, heuristic analysis remains a valuable tool in the early design stages to identify glaring usability issues efficiently.

A heuristic checklist is a structured tool used in heuristic evaluation to assess the user interface design against established usability principles or "heuristics." This checklist helps identify usability issues in a product, focusing on areas like user control, consistency, and error prevention. It's employed by experts to quickly spot potential problems in the early stages of design, aiding in the refinement of the user experience. For a more in-depth understanding and to explore the components of a heuristic checklist, refer to this article: How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation.

Start conducting your own heuristic evaluations with the help of any (or all!) of the different sets of heuristics:

Frank Spillers and Experience Dynamics’ USE Scorecard:

Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich’s universal usability heuristics:

Enrico Bertini, Silvia Gabrielli and Stephen Kimani’s modified heuristics for mobile:

The most common heuristic tool is Jakob Nielsen’s “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design.” It’s widely recognized and utilized for its effectiveness in identifying usability issues in user interface (UI) design.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

1. Visibility of System Status: Keep users informed about what's going on through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.
2. Match between System and the Real World: Use words and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
3. User Control and Freedom: Provide ways for users to easily reverse actions and exit from unintended states.
4. Consistency and Standards: Avoid user confusion by being consistent and following platform conventions.
5. Error Prevention: Eliminate error-prone conditions and confirm users' actions that have severe consequences.
6. Recognition Rather Than Recall: Minimize users' memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible and easily accessible.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use: Allow users to tailor actions and provide shortcuts to accelerate experienced users’ interaction.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design: Avoid unnecessary elements that can diminish the overall user experience.
9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors: Provide clear and plain-language error messages to help users understand, diagnose, and recover from errors.
10. Help and Documentation: Make help and documentation accessible, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be overly large.

This set focuses on essential principles such as user control, error prevention, and consistency, offering a straightforward approach to improving user experience by addressing the most prevalent and impactful aspects of interface design.

To learn heuristic evaluation, take with the User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide course. This course provides detailed insights and practical knowledge on heuristic evaluation, enabling learners to enhance user experience effectively. Additionally, explore comprehensive articles and literature on heuristic evaluation on the IxDF website to deepen your understanding and skills in this area. Both resources are invaluable for anyone looking to master heuristic evaluation techniques in user interface design.

The Practical Guide to Usability

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Literature on Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Here’s the entire UX literature on Heuristic Evaluation (HE) by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Heuristic Evaluation: How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is the activity of using a set of guidelines (heuristics) to evaluate if an interface is user-friendly. Let’s look at what heuristics are and how you can conduct a heuristic evaluation to improve the usability of your designs.

What are Heuristics?

“Heuristics” simply means guidelines. In user experience design, it is nearly impossible to define rigid rules. There is no fool-proof way to create experiences that are guaranteed to work. Instead, you can refer to principles to guide you in your design process, to help you evaluate your work before you test it with real users.

Several researchers and leaders have proposed different sets of guidelines for user interface design. Let’s look at one of the most popular guidelines proposed by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich.

Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Heuristics

Jakob Nielsen, a usability consultant and partner in the Nielsen Norman Group, and Rolf Molich, usability engineer and founder of DialogDesign, established a list of ten user interface design guidelines in the 1990s.

In this video, William Hudson explains each of these heuristics, along with illustrative examples.

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These heuristics are applied at the “Surface” element of the user’s experience. However, user experience is created by design decisions taken at the strategy (why and for whom are you building the solution?), scope (what is it that you’re building?) and the structure and skeleton (how does the solution work?) levels. So, it is helpful to keep heuristics in mind throughout the design process. Let’s say you are creating the user flow for a task in a mobile application (the structure). If you map the task flow close to the real-world task that users are already familiar with (heuristic #2: match between system and the real world), your interface (the surface) will be more likely to adhere to this heuristic.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

When you go shopping at the grocery store, sometimes you realize you’ve added extra items that you can do without, and take them out before reaching the checkout counter. Or, perhaps you request the cashier to remove an item even after they have billed it, realizing it is far too expensive. When designing the online version of the checkout process, your architecture should therefore support the back-and-forth movement between the different parts of the checkout process and the interface will need to as well.

© Amazon, Fair Use

Adapting Heuristics to Your Context

Technology has changed drastically since Nielsen and Molich first wrote the heuristics. For example, mobile devices and voice-based smart devices demand more context-specific heuristics. That said, Nielsen and Molich’s principles have stood the test of time and continue to be relevant. For example, on a voice-based interface, the heuristic “visibility of the system status” continues to be relevant; what changes is how you implement it (perhaps through a flickering light, or a dedicated sound effect). As new technology continues to emerge, you must learn how to adapt these heuristics to the new technologies, and if required, extend or add to the heuristics. For instance, ergonomics and judicious use of screen real estate are heuristics specific to mobile devices.

How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

• Establish an appropriate list of heuristics. You can choose Nielsen and Molich's 10 heuristics or another set, such as Ben Shneiderman’s 8 golden rules as inspiration and stepping stones. Make sure to combine them with other relevant design guidelines and market research.
• Select your evaluators. Make sure to carefully choose your evaluators. Your evaluators should not be your end users. They should typically be usability experts and preferably with domain expertise in the industry type that your product is in. For example, an evaluator investigating a Point-of-Sale system for the restaurant industry should have at least a general understanding of restaurant operations.
• Brief your evaluators so they know exactly what they are meant to do and cover during their evaluation. The briefing session should be standardized to ensure the evaluators receive the same instructions; otherwise, you may bias their evaluation. Within this brief, you may wish to ask the evaluators to focus on a selection of tasks, but sometimes they may state which ones they will cover based on their experience and expertise.
• First evaluation phase. The first evaluation generally takes around two hours, depending on the nature and complexity of your product. The evaluators will use the product freely to gain a feel for the methods of interaction and the scope. They will then identify specific elements that they want to evaluate.
• Second evaluation phase. In the second evaluation phase, the evaluators will carry out another run-through, whilst applying the chosen heuristics to the elements identified during the first phase. The evaluators would focus on individual elements and look at how well they fit in the overall design.
• Record problems. The evaluators must either record problems themselves or you should record them as they carry out their various tasks to track any problems they encounter. Be sure to ask the evaluators to be as detailed and specific as possible when recording problems.
• Debriefing session. The debriefing session involves collaboration between the different evaluators to collate their findings and establish a complete list of problems. They should then be encouraged to suggest potential solutions for these problems based on the heuristics.

In general, the more evaluators you have, the more usability issues you will unearth, especially when the evaluators have different skill sets. However, Jakob Nielsen suggests that between three and five evaluators is sufficient. With five evaluators, you should be able to identify up to 75% of all issues. While increasing the number of evaluators will help you find more issues, it may not be worth the time and effort.

© Jakob Nielsen and Nielsen Norman Group, Fair Use (Link)

Pros and Cons of Heuristic Evaluation

Like any suggested method in research and design, there are both pros and cons in the usability inspection method of heuristic evaluation. Let’s examine a few of them:

Pros of Heuristic Evaluation

• Heuristics can help highlight potential usability issues early in the design process.
• It is a fast and inexpensive tool compared with other methods involving real users.

Cons of Heuristic Evaluation

• Heuristic evaluation depends on the knowledge and expertise of the evaluators. Training the evaluators or hiring external evaluators might increase the time and money required for conducting the evaluation.
• Heuristic evaluation is based on assumptions about what “good” usability is. As heuristics are based on research, this is often true. However, the evaluations are no substitute for testing with real users. These are, as the name suggests, only guidelines, and not rules that are set in stone.
• Heuristic evaluation can end up giving false alarms. In their article, “Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation: A head-to-head comparison,” Robert Bailey, Robert Allan and P. Raiello found that 43% of 'problems' identified by experimental heuristic evaluations were not actually problems. Furthermore, evaluators could only identify 21% of genuine usability problems in comparison with usability testing.

Start conducting your own heuristic evaluations with the help of this template:

The Take Away

In user experience design, there are no hard rules that guarantee success. Instead, there are general guidelines, principles, or rules of thumb that you use to inform and evaluate your work. These guidelines are called heuristics, and when you evaluate your (or your competitor’s) work against these heuristics, it is called heuristic evaluation.

One of the most popular sets of heuristics are those created by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich. These are:

• Visibility of system status: Keep the user informed about what is happening behind the scenes.
• Match between system and the real world: Ensure the conventions you use match what the user is already familiar with in the real world.
• User control and freedom: Allow users to step back, undo and redo their actions.
• Consistency and standards: Ensure interface elements like labels and icons behave consistently throughout the product.
• Error prevention: Anticipate, and plan for errors. Where possible, eliminate them; and for other cases, ensure users can easily recover from errors.
• Recognition rather than recall: Do not expect users to remember or recall information. It is always easier to recall information when we have clues to point us towards it. For example, it is easier for us to pick (i.e., recognize) the right answer from a list of options, rather than attempting to answer from memory (recall). Make sure your interface has cues to help users recognize information.
• Flexibility and efficiency of use: Allow users to customize or tailor the interface to suit their needs so that they can perform frequent actions more easily.
• Aesthetic and minimalist design: Remove clutter and any superfluous information so that users can focus on achieving their goal, instead of getting confused or overwhelmed.
• Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors: Avoid technical jargon. Write error messages in plain language and ensure nothing gets lost in translation.
• Help and documentation: Provide easily accessible and searchable documentation.

Heuristic evaluation can be a useful inspection method; however, some experts have identified issues with evaluators reporting false alarms, rather than genuine problem elements within designs. To limit the effect misreporting has on the applicability of findings from heuristic evaluation, it helps to use a number of different evaluators, collate their problems and carry out a debriefing session to root out false alarms at various stages in the design process.

Heuristic evaluation is one of the many tools to guide your design process. However, it is not the only one that you should rely on. Make sure you conduct user research and test your designs with real users to continually refine your work.

References and Where To Learn More

Learn more about Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design here

Ben Shneiderman proposed a set of guidelines, often dubbed “Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design,” four years before Nielsen and Molich published theirs. While they are worded slightly differently, there is a significant overlap between the two sets and you can read more about it here

Nielsen compared eleven sets of guidelines proposed by various authors and curated a synthesized list that tackles the larger question: which heuristics help unearth usability issues? To know more, please see here.

Here are Enrico Bertini, Silvia Gabrielli and Stephen Kimani’s heuristics adapted for mobile devices.

Images

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

Learn more about Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Take a deep dive into Heuristic Evaluation (HE) with our course The Practical Guide to Usability .

Every product or website should be easy and pleasurable to use, but designing an effective, efficient and enjoyable product is hardly the result of good intentions alone. Only through careful execution of certain usability principles can you achieve this and avoid user dissatisfaction, too. This course is designed to help you turn your good intentions into great products through a mixture of teaching both the theoretical guidelines as well as practical applications surrounding usability.

Countless pieces of research have shown that usability is important in product choice, but perhaps not as much as users themselves believe; it may be the case that people have come to expect usability in their products. This growing expectation puts even more pressure on designers to find the sweet spot between function and form. It is meanwhile critical that product and web developers retain their focus on the user; getting too lost within the depths of their creation could lead to the users and their usability needs getting waylaid. Through the knowledge of how best to position yourself as the user, you can dodge this hazard. Thanks to that wisdom, your product will end up with such good usability that the latter goes unnoticed!

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