This article is part 1 of a series where we’ll explore Nielsen’s 10 heuristics. Stay tuned for upcoming releases!
In 1994, smartphones did not exist. Cellphones were bulky and heavy, and tablets were only used for eating chocolate. That same year, Jakob Nielsen, a renowned software engineer, established his 10 general principles for interaction design, commonly referred to as heuristics.
They are just as relevant today as they were when the book “Usability Inspection Methods” was published back in 1994. The heuristics were developed as a result of his work in the field of usability, and have become an essential part of any UX/UI designer’s toolkit ever since.
As a digital product design company, our goal is to create products that not only function well but also provide a seamless and enjoyable user experience. We like to think of heuristics as a comprehensive framework for designing user-centered digital products. They help teams save time and streamline usability testing concepts, focusing their attention on the challenge at hand.
Let’s take a brief look at the 10 heuristics. We’ll dive into each of them very soon, so stay tuned for our next articles!
- Visibility of system status: The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
- Match between system and the real world: The design should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
- User control and freedom: The design should allow users to undo and redo actions, or provide alternative paths to achieve the same result.
- Consistency and standards: The design should be consistent with similar interfaces and adhere to standards, making it easier for users to predict the behavior of the system.
- Error prevention: The design should prevent errors wherever possible, rather than just reporting them, with clear and concise error messages.
- Recognition rather than recall: The design should minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another.
- Flexibility and efficiency of use: The design should be flexible, so that users can tailor frequent actions. Accelerators—unseen by the novice user—may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
- Aesthetic and minimalist design: The design should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
- Help and documentation: Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.
Nielsen’s 10 design heuristics are a powerful tool for digital designers to create products that provide a seamless and enjoyable user experience. By following these heuristics, designers can ensure that their products are both usable and enjoyable to use, leading to higher levels of user satisfaction and engagement.
Stay tuned for in-depth analysis of Nielsen’s first heuristic: Visibility of System Status, and explore how to apply it to your product.
At Arionkoder, we are committed to creating products make your users smile and enjoy a seamless experience. Reach out to us today to discover everything we can accomplish together!