How to improve UX with 10 usability heuristics by Neilsen?
By: Sonika, Ui Ux Designer
Tags: Usability, User Experience, User Research, UX, UX Design

Jakob Nielsen’s heuristics are probably the most-used usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen developed the heuristics based on work together with Rolf Molich in 1990.[1][2] The final set of heuristics that are still used today were released by Nielsen in 1994.[3] The heuristics as published in Nielsen’s book Usability Engineering are as follows:

Visibility of system status Match between the system & the real world User control & freedom Consistency & Standard Error prevention Recognition rather than recall Flexibility & efficiency of use Aesthetics & Minimalist design Help users recognize, diagnose & recover, from errors. Help & Documentations

1. Visibility of system status

The system should always keep the user informed about what is going on through proper feedback & in a reasonable time.

Added a classic example of Gmail loading; When a user attaches a file while composing an email, the system display loading bar, and file size to keep the user informed.

2. Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the user's language with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user. It should rather speak the language and sign understood by the user or worldwide instead of system-oriented.

Don’t use phrases like Path XXXX not found as a user may not have anything to do rather than it informs you about using the correct password or your email is not registered so that the user knows what further action to take.

An excellent example of a match between the system and real-world is if you use a name like Shopping cart/ Shopping cart icon, a user knows what it means straight away as iconography is aspire from real/physical world.

Few examples of a Match between system and the real world:

3. User control & freedom

Users step into the system sometimes by mistake, give the user a clear direction about “Emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through unwanted dialogue.

If a user has clicked on downloading any file/application by mistake, do provide direction to cancel or interrupt the download by giving undo or redo message.

If someone has clicked on downloading 5 GB file by mistake and they don’t want to continue, give them the option to canceling/pausing the download. So not only save the cost of that download but also saves a lot of time for the user.

Another example, if a user adds some item to cart/ added incorrect quantity of the product and later chooses to buy, there should be a delete/change of quantity button to cancel the buy.

Below is an example of user control & freedom:

4. Consistency & Standard

Consistency & Standards users should not have to wonder that different words, situations, and the same words can have different meanings in various places.

Consistency is a golden-rule in design. To provide a quality experience to your users it is essential that you are consistent in both the design and content of your websites. Consistency is the biggest factor that separates a negative experience from a positive one.

Below is an example:

5. Error prevention

It is always better to design user interfaces that prevent errors from happening in the first place. Promote data quality to reduce the occurrence of errors and ease of use. Anticipate typical user errors. Always provide sufficient instructional information to support data quality and ensure such information is easily visible.

Sharing an example of google search engine. As you can notice that if you type an incorrect word, it gives you auto-populated search results matching with your search keywords. According to me, it is one of the great of example of error prevention.

6. Recognition rather than recall

To minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, options & actions visible. The user should not have to try remembering the information from one part to another. Things have to be visible and understood by looking at it once.

Few examples of recognition rather than recall.

7. Flexibility & efficiency of use

It’s the seventh heuristics guideline of Nielsen’s Heuristics. Flexibility and efficiency of Use. Flexibility and efficiency of use heuristic principle is about giving your users ways to speed up their work with more efficiency and flexibility.

Below is an example of Flexibility & efficiency of use:

Disclaimer: This GIF doesn’t belong to me.

8. Aesthetics & Minimalist design

Dialogues 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.

Amazon Search results — Products are ordered in the grid that let u know that they are a product. Avoid distracting elements that are not needed.

Here’s sharing an example of Google search as below:

9. Help users recognize, diagnose & recover, from errors.

Don’t provide just the error messages to your users but show it in a way they can understand to Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover. Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

A mixture of other Heuristics

Give Feedback

Use language the user understands

Allow users to exit or undo mistakes

Prevent error as they happened ( impossible DOB)

Ex. 404 pages

10. Help & Documentations

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.

For example, Help page/files.

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