Heuristic testing is a usability evaluation method used to identify usability problems in a user interface. It involves a set of principles or guidelines, known as heuristics, that evaluators use to assess the interface. The most commonly referenced set of heuristics was developed by Jakob Nielsen and includes ten general principles for interaction design. Here’s a brief overview of these heuristics:
Heuristic testing is typically performed by usability experts who evaluate the interface against these principles, often resulting in a list of usability issues that can be addressed to improve the user experience.
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. 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.
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.
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design: Dialogues should not contain irrelevant or rarely needed information. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Flexibility and Efficiency of Use: 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.
Recognition Rather Than Recall: 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.
Error Prevention: Even better than good error messages is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
Consistency and Standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
User Control and Freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue.
Match Between System and the Real World: The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
Visibility of System Status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.