Learning session 14: 10 Usability Heuristics by Jacob Nielsen

🚁 Topic

Today, I primarily focused on learning about ten usability heuristics principles by Jacob Nielsen; therefore, I found some tips for each system.

Let’s go ahead, and I will tell you all about it.

🤓 What I learned

Usability heuristics developed by Nielsen are broad ideas rather than detailed instructions. They can help you to design a user interface that is simple and understandable to users who are using your products. The goal is to create a user-friendly interface that directs users on their trips.

Visibility of system status

This system refers to how well a system state is conveyed to users. A sound system should keep users informed about what is going on through feedback without spending users’ time.

When the system status heuristic is visible, users must be aware of the consequences of their actions. To accomplish this, it is essential to provide quick feedback on actions. Users need to be made aware of the progress of their actions as they take them and anticipate a particular outcome.

A sound system provides four possible feedbacks:

• What has just happened?
• Where am I?
• What will happen next?
• What is happening?

Match between the system and the natural world

The system should match words, ideas, and concepts known to the user rather than system-oriented terminology for it to be a match between the system and the real world.

Users will be disappointed by your designs’ jargon and system-focused phrases. Ensure your users are familiar with your terms, phrases, and ideas. Users get more efficient in a new setting when it resembles real life.

As I mentioned in other articles, you must remember that users don’t like getting used to knowing things.

Tip:

You can use user research to help uncover users’ familiar terminologies and opinions around essential concepts.

Don’t assume that your concept and thoughts are similar to users’ thoughts.

User control and freedom

From my experience, I am likely to make mistakes while interacting daily with different websites, and I get frustrated If I can’t exit or undo the decision I unintentionally made.

The user control and freedom heuristic assume that users interact with a system and are likely to make mistakes or change their minds and want to undo a decision.

It’s essential to offer an “emergency escape” so people can leave the undesirable situation without having a detailed discussion.

Because we are only human, we occasionally make mistakes, have second thoughts, and change our minds. People feel more comfortable knowing they can reverse or cancel an undesired action. The exit must be obvious what happens when users click it.

Tip:

Make sure to support Undo and Redo and the exit button should be right at the user’s face.

Consistency and standards

Consistency and standards help users to know how to interact well with elements or wonder whether different situations or actions mean the same thing.

Create a standard way to use your elements through the design, from the colors to icons. This system will help to make your product consistent.

Jacob’s Law states that people spend most of their time on digital products other than their own. User experience with these other products will determine user expectations.

If you fail to maintain consistency can force users to learn something new, increasing their cognitive load. There are four types of consistency that designers can use while creating a product:

• Visual
• Functional
• Internal
• External

Tips:

1. Try to improve learnability by maintaining consistency.
2. Maintain consistency with a single product or a group of products.

Error prevention

This principle prevents errors rather than trying to fix them later. You can guide users on their journey by showing suggestions and also providing intelligent defaults.

This can make users’ journeys easier and let them change their minds throughout this path. User makes mistakes while using different products. For example, if you type “bicylce” instead of “bicycle.”

You can use input restrictions, helpful suggestions, and permissive input formats to avoid mistakes. Conscious user actions cause errors.

Tips:

1. Prioritize your efforts.
2. Prevent costly mistakes first, minor frustrations second.

Recognition rather than recall

Recognition rather than recall heuristics should always minimize the user’s memory load by clearly presenting actions, items, and options.

Don’t make users think twice while interacting with buttons. Don’t force users to remember what each button does. Recognition works more efficiently than memory.

Familiar interfaces are recognizable, so they match real-world interactions and experiences as much as possible. This system is very similar to matching the real world.

Tips:

1. Let the user recognize information in the product, not having to remember it.
2. Minimize the information that users have to remember

Flexibility and efficiency of use

The flexibility and efficiency of use represent the system that should be convertible to accommodate the advanced users’ and newcomers’ needs. For example, shortcuts make our life much easier.

While not wasting time, you can use shortcuts for the advanced user, while for newcomers, you can put tips and clear labels to help the user complete a task without confusion.

This system offers users to customize functions to their specific needs.

Tips:

1. Provides access keys such as keyboard shortcuts and touch gestures.
2. We provide personalization by customizing content and functionality for individual users.
3. Allow customization so users can choose how the product behaves.

Aesthetic and minimalist design

The design should be aesthetic and also minimalist at the same time. Aesthetics become important as users enjoy visually appealing interfaces. Visuals are essential because:

• They make an excellent first impression. User first notices the aesthetic in the product than the content in it.
• Interface perception is more memorable than interface experience.
• Establishes and reinforces brand identity and credibility as user interface perception is remembered by people.

The minimalist design achieves to minimize unnecessary noise. In that way, it can emphasize the necessary elements.You must be careful not to remove the necessary elements while creating a minimalist design.

Also, a minimalist design should ensure that it has sufficient elements to complete user tasks.

Steve Jobs said, “Design is not just what it looks like or feels like. Design is how it works.”

Tips:

1. Support primary goals like prioritizing the content and features.
2. Don’t distract the user with unnecessary elements from the information they need.

Help users recognize and recover from errors.

To help users recognize errors, the system should also alert users in simple language to indicate the problem while providing solutions for users’ errors.

You don’t want to leave users wondering what they did wrong or how to fix it. Good error messages tell users what happened and give hints on how to fix the mistake. Don’t make users feel stupid for making a mistake. Feel free to make error messages friendly.

Tips:

1. Use error message visuals like bold and red to get users’ attention.
2. Try to tell users what is wrong in an understandable way.

Help and documentation

Help and documentation heuristics mean that the system should make it easy to find additional information when needed. Good design is approachable and easy to understand, but sometimes users need a little nudge. The best way is to proactively provide help when the user asks for it, such as contextual tips or onboarding screens.

When users get stuck and need help, it’s essential to make it easy for them to find documentation and tutorials for help.

Ultimately, the help documentation should be designed to be unnecessary but included.

Tips:

1. Make sure that the help documentation is easy to find.
2. Make a concrete list with steps to be carried out.

🤺 What challenged me

Learning about usability heuristics is enjoyable, but it is also a very challenging path. The usability heuristics systems are essential to creating a good and friendly user experience. As I was diving into these systems, I had difficulty fully understanding how to imply them while designing a product. With some research, I found some tips which helped me, and I thought of sharing them with you.

Thank you for coming this far. Any feedback or critique is appreciated.❤️