10 Heuristics Flashcards
What are heuristics?
A heuristic evaluation is a way to asses if your software adheres to user experience best practice or not.
- General rules of thumb
- Characteristics of best practices
- Criteria to measure against
What 3 ‘giants’ of the user experience world define the 10 heuristics?
Alan Cooper - Software should be polite
Jakob Nielson - Usability heuristics
Steve Krug - The reservoir of goodwill
Which heuristics are included in ‘Software should be polite’?
- Software should be interested in me
- Software should be forthcoming
- Software should be self-confident
- Software should have common sense
Which heuristics are included in ‘Usability heuristics’?
- Visibility of system status
- Match between system and real world
- Freedom and control
- Recognition rather than recall
Which heuristics are included in ‘The reservoir of goodwill’?
- Don’t force me to do it your way
10. Save me steps whenever possible
What is most important in a heuristic evaluation sheet?
Describing where your software fails to meet the 10 standards and comments on how to improve it.
Software should be interested in me
Software should be personal, recognize the user by name. Software used regularly should ideally over time learn the user’s preferences over time.
How can your software learn more about its users?
Software should be forthcoming
Software should be able to help a user make an more informed decision. Prevent a user from making a wrong choice.
Software should be self-confident
Software should not second-guess the user or itself. The software should not assume a mistake was made in the first place.
Software should have common sense
Software should have the same common sense approach as a human.
Visibility of system status
Software should let users know what is going on to reduce anxiety, guess work and repetitive actions because the user doesn’t know if the system is responding.
Match between system and real world
Software should not have jarrgon, metaphores, or concepts only your organization understands. The machine/system should not take control of communication. Make sure the software speakers the same language as your customer.
Freedom and control
Software shouldn’t punish the user for mistakes or lead a user down a dead end.
Recognition rather than recall
Software should encourage recognition over recall. Don’t make your users recall specific information. It’s easier for humans to recognize names, pictures and symbols instead.
Don’t force me to do it your way
Software should not inconvenience the user. Don’t force users to format data. The software should handle formatting.
