# Heuristic Evaluations

> Learn how to conduct a Heuristic Evaluation, a usability inspection method for identifying design problems in an interface based on recognized usability principles.

*Tags: ux, technique, audit, junior*

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> [!info] Quick Definition
> A heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method in which one or more evaluators examine an interface and judge it against a set of recognized usability principles (the "heuristics"). The goal is to identify usability problems in the design.


## What Is a Heuristic Evaluation?

Imagine you are a food critic visiting a restaurant. You are not a regular customer; you are an expert who evaluates the restaurant based on a set of established criteria: ingredient quality, presentation, service, ambiance, etc. At the end, you produce a report with your findings.

A heuristic evaluation is very similar. A group of usability experts (the designers) inspects an interface and evaluates it against a list of universally accepted usability principles (the "heuristics"). The most famous list is **Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics**.

## Why Is It Important?

- **It is fast and cheap:** It does not require recruiting users, renting labs, or providing incentives. It can be done in a couple of days with the existing team.
- **It finds many problems:** It is a very effective way to find the most obvious and "low-hanging fruit" usability problems.
- **It is a good starting point:** It is a great technique to perform at the beginning of a redesign project to have an inventory of current problems.

## Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics

This is the most widely used set of heuristics:

1.  **Visibility of system status:** The system should always keep users informed about what is going on.
2.  **Match between system and the real world:** The system should speak the user's language.
3.  **User control and freedom:** Users should be able to undo and redo actions easily.
4.  **Consistency and standards:** Do not make users wonder whether different words or actions mean the same thing.
5.  **Error prevention:** It is better to prevent errors than to have good error messages.
6.  **Recognition rather than recall:** Make objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another.
7.  **Flexibility and efficiency of use:** Allow users to customize frequent actions. Accelerators (shortcuts) can speed up usage for experts.
8.  **Aesthetic and minimalist design:** Dialogs should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed.
9.  **Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors:** Error messages should be expressed in plain language, indicate the problem, and suggest a solution.
10. **Help and documentation:** Although it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help.

## How Is It Done?

1.  **Choose the evaluators:** It is recommended that 3 to 5 people evaluate the interface independently.
2.  **Define the scope:** What parts of the application will be evaluated?
3.  **Perform the individual evaluation:** Each evaluator navigates the interface and notes every usability problem they find, indicating which heuristic it violates and the severity of the problem (from 0 to 4).
4.  **Consolidate the results:** All findings are gathered into a single document, duplicates are removed, and problems are prioritized based on their severity.
5.  **Create an actionable report:** The final result should be a prioritized list of problems with clear recommendations on how to fix them.

## Mentor Tips

- **Multiple evaluators are better than one:** A single evaluator will only find about a third of the problems. With 3-5 evaluators, you can find up to 75% of the problems.
- **Evaluators must work separately:** It is crucial that the evaluation is individual to ensure that one person's opinions do not influence others.
- **It is not a substitute for user testing:** A heuristic evaluation tells you where there *might* be problems. A [[Usability Testing|usability test]] tells you where users *actually* have problems. Both techniques are complementary.

## Resources and Tools

- **Resources:**
    - **[10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/)** - Nielsen Norman Group (The original and fundamental article).
- **Tools:**
    - A simple spreadsheet (Google Sheets, Excel) is all you need to record and consolidate findings.


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Source: https://www.fernandoux.com/en/wiki/techniques/heuristic-evaluations/