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Heuristic evaluation: Definition, case study, template

Imagine yourself faced with the challenge of assembling a tricky puzzle but not knowing where to start. Elements such as logical reasoning and meticulous attention to detail become essential, requiring an approach that goes beyond the surface level to achieve effectiveness. When evaluating the user experience of an interface, it is no different.

In this article, we will cover the fundamental concepts of heuristic evaluation, how to properly perform a heuristic evaluation, and the positive effects it can bring to your UX design process. Let’s learn how you can solve challenges with heuristic evaluation.

What is heuristic evaluation?

The heuristic evaluation principles, understanding nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, essential steps in heuristic evaluation, prioritization criteria in the analysis of usability problems, communicating heuristic evaluation results effectively, dropbox’s heuristic evaluation approach, incorporating heuristic evaluation into the ux process.

The heuristic evaluation method’s main goal is to evaluate the usability quality of an interface based on a set of principles, based on UX best practices. From the identification of the problems, it is possible to provide practical recommendations and consequently improve the user experience.

So where did heuristic evaluation come from, and how do we use these principles? Read on.

Heuristic evaluation was created by Jakob Nielsen, recognized worldwide for his significant contributions to the field of UX. The method created by Nielsen is based on a set of heuristics from human-computer interaction (HCI) and psychology to inspect the usability of user interfaces.

Therefore, Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics make up the principles of heuristic evaluation by establishing carefully established foundations. These foundations serve as a practical guide to cover the main usability problems of projects. These heuristics work as cognitive shortcuts used by the brain for efficient decision making, especially in redesign projects. Heuristics also help to complement the UX process when understanding user problems and supporting UX research and evaluation.

When you are getting ready to conduct a heuristic evaluation, the first step is to set clear goals. Then, during the evaluation, you should make notes on what you find considering usability issues, always based on the criteria. Once this is done, you can prepare a report that might include information on which issues to tackle first, which makes the evaluation even better. All these steps matter because they help make sure interfaces match what users want and expect, leading to better interactions overall.

Preparation for the heuristic evaluation: Defining usability objectives and criteria

As with the puzzle example in the intro, fully understanding the problem is critical to applying heuristic evaluation effectively. Thus, during the preparation phase, you need to establish the evaluation criteria, also defining how these criteria will be evaluated.

Select evaluators based on their experience. By involving a diverse set of evaluators, you can obtain different perspectives on the same challenge. Although an expert is able to point out most of the problems in a heuristic evaluation, collaboration is essential to generate more comprehensive recommendations.

Although it follows a set of heuristics, the evaluation is less formal and less expensive than a user test, making it faster and easier to conduct. Therefore, heuristic evaluation can be performed in the early stages of design and development when making changes is more cost effective.

Nielsen’s usability heuristics are like a tactical set for methodically making things work, providing valuable clues that designers and creators follow to piece together the usability puzzle. These heuristics act as master guides, helping us intelligently fit each piece of the puzzle together so that everything makes sense and is easy to understand to create amazing experiences in the products and websites we use.

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Here are Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, each with its own relevance and purpose:

1. System status visibility

Continuously inform the user about what is happening.

2. Correspondence between the system and the real world

Use words and concepts familiar to the user.

3. User control and freedom

Allow users to undo actions and explore the system without fear of making mistakes.

4. Consistency and standards

Maintain a consistent design throughout the system, so users can apply what they learned in one part to the rest.

5. Error prevention

Design in a manner that prevents users from committing mistakes or provides means to easily correct wrong decisions.

6. Recognition instead of memorization

Provide contextual hints and tips to help users accomplish tasks without needing to remember specific information.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

Allow users to customize keyboard shortcuts or create custom profiles to streamline their interactions.

8. Aesthetics and minimalist design

Keep the design clean and simple, focusing on the most relevant information to avoid overwhelming users using proper spacing, colors, and typography.

9. Help and documentation

Provide helpful and accessible support in case users need extra guidance.

10. User feedback

Give immediate feedback to users when they take an action.

Together, these pieces of the usability heuristics puzzle help us build a complete picture of digital experiences. Thus, by following these guidelines, evaluators can identify problems and prioritize them for correction at the evaluation stage.

In the evaluation phase, evaluators should look at the product or system interface and document any usability issues based on heuristics. By using heuristics consistently across different parts of the interface, it is still possible to balance conflicting heuristics to find optimal design solutions.

There may be challenges during the evaluation phase, which is why it is important that evaluators suggest strategies to overcome them from the definition of priorities. Evaluators should therefore, in consensus, discuss how these heuristics can be applied to identify and address usability problems.

One of the interesting ways to do heuristic evaluation is through real-time collaboration tools like Miro. On the template below, you will be able to collaborate in real-time to conduct heuristic evaluations of your project with your team, evaluating the problems by criteria and dividing them by colors, based on the level of complexity to be solved.

You can download the Miro Heuristic Evaluation template for free .

After performing a heuristic assessment, evaluators should analyze the findings and prioritize usability issues, trying to identify the underlying causes of usability issues rather than just addressing surface symptoms.

Usability issues discovered during the assessment can be given severity ratings to prioritize fixes.

Below is an example of categorization by severity according to the challenge presented:

• High severity : Prevents the user from performing one or more tasks
• Medium severity : Requires user effort and affects performance
• Low severity : May be noticeable to the user but does not impede execution or performance

The classification will help the team to have greater clarity regarding what is most relevant to be faced considering the impact on the user experience. By prioritizing the most critical issues based on their impact on the user experience, it will be easier to effectively allocate them throughout the project.

Finally, during the reporting phase, evaluators should present their findings and recommendations to stakeholders and facilitate discussions on identified issues.

Evaluators typically conduct multiple iterations of the assessment to uncover different issues in subsequent rounds based on the need for the project and the issues identified.

Heuristic evaluation provides qualitative data, making it important to interpret the results with a deeper understanding of user behavior. When reporting and communicating the results of a heuristic assessment, assessors should follow best practices by presenting findings in visual representations that are easy to read and understand, and that highlight key findings, whether using interactive boards, tables or other visuals.

Problem descriptions should be clear and concise so they can be actionable. Instead of generating generic problems, for example, break the problems into distinct parts to be easier to deal with. If necessary, try to analyze the interface component and its details, thinking not only analytically in an abstract way but also understanding that that problem will be solved by a UX Designer, considering all its elements. In this scenario, a well-applied context makes all the difference.

It is also important to involve stakeholders and facilitate discussions around identified issues. As a popular saying goes: a problem communicated is a problem half solved.

The Dropbox team really nails it when it comes to giving users a smooth and user friendly experience. Let’s dive into a few ways they have put these heuristic evaluation principles to work in their platform:

Dropbox keeps things clear by using concise labels to show the status of your uploaded files. They also incorporate a convenient progress bar that provides a time estimate for the completion of the upload. This real-time feedback keeps you informed about the ongoing status of your uploads on the platform:

The ease of moving, deleting, and renaming files between different folders and sharing with other people means that Dropbox offers users control over fundamental actions, allowing them to work in a personalized way, increasing their sense of ownership:

Making it a breeze for users to navigate no matter if they’re on a computer or a mobile device, Dropbox keeps things consistent in both: website and mobile app design:

To prevent errors from happening, Dropbox has implemented an interesting feature. If a user attempts to upload a file that’s too large, Dropbox triggers an error message. This message is quite helpful, as it guides the user to select a smaller file and clearly explains the issue. It’s a nifty feature that ensures users know exactly which steps to take next:

Dropbox cleverly employs affordances to ensure that users can easily figure out how to navigate the app. Take, for instance, the blue button located at the top of the screen — it’s your go-to for creating new files and folders. This is a familiar and intuitive pattern that users can quickly grasp:

Consider now flexibility and efficiency. On Dropbox, the user can access their files from any gadget, and they can keep working even when they are offline without worrying about losing anything. It makes staying productive a breeze, no matter where the users finds themselves:

Dropbox has a clean and minimalist design that’s a breeze to use and get around in. Plus, it’s available in different languages, ensuring accessibility for people all around the world:

Dropbox goes the extra mile by using additional methods alongside heuristic evaluation, demonstrating a high positive impact on their services. All this dedication to applying the best heuristics on their products has made Dropbox one of the most popular storage services globally.

Heuristic evaluation fits into the broader UX design process and can be conducted iteratively throughout the design lifecycle, despite being commonly used early in the design process.

It provides valuable insights to inform design decisions and improvements and enables UX designers to effectively identify and address usability issues.

Conclusion and key takeaways

In this article, we have seen that heuristic evaluation is a systematic and valuable approach to identifying usability problems in systems and products. Through the use of general usability guidelines, it is possible to highlight gaps in the user experience, addressing areas such as clarity, consistency and control. This evaluation is conducted by a multidisciplinary team, and the problems identified are recorded in detail, allowing for further prioritization and refinement.

Much like a complex puzzle, improving usability and user experience requires identifying patterns and providing instructive feedback when working collaboratively.

Checking interfaces using heuristic evaluation can uncover many issues, but it’s not a replacement for what you learn from watching actual users. Think of it as an extra tool to understand users better.

Remember that heuristic evaluation not only reveals challenges but also empowers you as a UX professional to create more intuitive and impactful solutions.

When you mix in heuristic evaluation while making your designs, you can end up with products and systems that are more helpful and user-friendly without spending too much. This helps make your products or services even better by following good user experience tips.

So don’t hesitate: make the most of the potential of heuristic evaluation to push usability to the next level in your UX project.

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Heuristic analysis of Chase for business app — a UX case study

Rather than aiming for perfection, it is more important to focus on continuous improvement for user experience (UX) for an existing product. In this article, we’ll be exploring a heuristic evaluation example, particularly the exact process that we’re using to improve apps. 

UX review is important to ensure that you’re delivering the right solution that resonates with the audience. It ought to be carried out in products and services offered to ensure that customers are getting the best out of what your company offers.

Rather than glossing through the theories, we’re going to show how Heuristic evaluation is applied in a real example: The Chase Mobile Banking App. 

Chase For Business App Overview

The Chase business app allows users to easily connect and utilize the banking accounts and services provided by the JPMorgan Chase Banks. The Chase app offers the same financing features as the Chase.com website, including security, reports, and the ease of sending money. 

Users who already have a Chase.com account can download the app and get started with the same credential. Alternatively, they can create a new account from the app itself.

Our UX Review Process  

Now, let’s get started on the UX review process of the Chase business app. 

Set objectives

Before starting the Heuristic evaluation for UX review, it is essential to establish the objectives of doing so. Ultimately, the process is intended to chart a clear actionable path to improve the design. The objectives may differ according to apps and organizations. For example, you may want to review an app to find out ways to increase sign-up rates.

In our case, we’re reviewing the Chase app to improve the app’s user flow and streamline the user experience.

Study behavior flows

User behavior reveals a great deal about what’s working or lacking in an app. It provides insights into issues like high user drop offs, particularly where and why it happens. 

Our team uses a few methods to study behavior flows on apps. We use proto personas (as we have only assumptions, that we need to validate) to understand user needs and build empathy. We create an interactive user experience by combining the documented user journey with business and user objectives. 

Here’s how our proto persona looks like

An example of Customer Journey Map 

In order to get a deeper insight into users’ needs and validate our assumptions , we also conduct interviews. 

The Chase App Heuristic Evaluation Example

Heuristic evaluation is a popular method to analyze user experience in a finished product. It is based on a broad set of guidelines where a number of criteria are manually evaluated. The goal of the Heuristic evaluation is to pinpoint problems in a product and offer the right solutions.

In our review process of the Chase app, we’re going to use Jakob Nielsen's 10 heuristics that are proven to be reliable in UX evaluation. 

Let’s go through each criterion with accompanying analysis, problems, and solutions for the existing app. 

1. Visibility of system status

Users ought to always be aware of what they are doing in an app, particularly one that involves financial transactions. 

Problem : No obvious elements (deposit)

Task : Put money on deposit

Issue : Elements with the camera icon doesn’t explain exactly what the users need to do.

Recommendation : Add a description or visually display what needs to be photographed.

Good Points : Progress bar on the signup screen.

2. Match between system and the real world

Apps are created by developers who are familiar with programming terminology. However, users appreciate the information presented in languages and terms they are familiar with. The disparity in both leads to a bad user experience. 

Problem #1: The icon doesn’t display information about opening an account.

Task : Open an account.

Issue: The icon on the button doesn’t correspond to the button’s function.

Recommendation: Replace the icon with one that associates with a bank account.

Problem #2: The support button lacks a descriptive label.

Task : Contact support.

Issue : The button’s name isn’t informative enough. It doesn’t imply that the button is used to contact the support manager. 

Recommendation : Replace the text on the button with ‘Contact Support”

Good points: It provides a convenient ATM search map.

3. User control and freedom

An app must anticipate unpredictability in user behavior. For example, the user may make mistakes and need to backtrace the navigational path. Or he/she needs to make corrections to inputs on the app. 

Problem : No issues were detected.

4. Consistency and standards

Users are bound by habit and it will be bad for UX if the app does not show consistency in terminology, layout, and behavior. An app could be confusing for users if it fails to maintain a standard operating convention.

Problem #1: Inconsistent icon style.

Task : Access bank accounts info. 

Issue : The app icons are differing in style. There are at least 3 different types with mixed outlines, fills, and colors. Some icons point to the same action but are not uniformly designed on different screens.

Recommendation: Create a set of consistent icons for the Chase app.

Problem #2 : Navigational elements behave differently in different situations.

Task : Navigating the app

Issue : The navigational elements are not confined to a single predictable behavior. There are several types of drop-down and add buttons. At least 2 types of tabs are found in the app with one strikingly different from the generic background style. 

Recommendation: Standardize the appearance and behavior of navigational elements. 

Problem #3: Different styles for similar elements. 

Task : Determine the visual composition of buttons and elements on the screen.

Issue: Too many font and button styles, including the placeholder for buttons. 

Recommendation: Create a style and its variation for the same interface element. 

Problem #4: Dropdowns look different in various scenarios. 

Task: Redesign dropdown elements

Issue: There’s a lack of consistency with dropdown arrows and behaviors. It’s hard to anticipate the behavior of dropdowns as similar styles may result in different interaction behavior. Also, dropdowns that exhibit the same behavior sometimes have different colors. 

Recommendation : Redesign dropdowns by making them visually consistent across similar types of interaction.

Problem #5 : Inconsistent ‘More’ button behavior.

Task : Make the ‘More’ button consistent

Issue : The ‘More’ button opens different types of windows in different situations.

Recommendation: Review the information in the window and figure out how to make the style of the windows consistent throughout the app.

5. Error prevention

Users are bound to make mistakes and it is the onus of the app to detect and prevent them from happening. Verification checks and error prompts are good features to prevent the app from taking in erroneous inputs.

Problem : Users are only aware of errors after pressing the ‘Continue’ button. The Chase app lacks preemptive error prevention.

Task : Improve error prevention.

Issue : The app lacks preemptive error checks, which results in users spending more time correcting the mistakes and completing the form.

Recommendation: Add contextual field validation to check the information filled in spontaneously, and not after the user has submitted the form. Any input rules should be highlighted, whether they are fulfilled or not.

Good points: Field hints to make form-filling easier and confirmation of selection for clarity. 

6. Recognition rather than recall

Any information and instruction deemed critical in using the app should be made visible to users. Users should not be burdened with memorizing the details as they navigate through the app. Such information should be visible, or easily accessible.

Problem: Title for ‘Account’

Task: Add navigation bar title

Issue : The navigation bar title is absent. 

Recommendation: Review all pages to find out if the navigation bar title is missing elsewhere.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

Both novice and experienced users expect the app to be tailored to their preferences. Therefore, an app must allow personalization according to the user’s level of experience. For example, advanced features are hidden to prevent overwhelming novice users but accessible to experienced users.

Problem #1: Can’t copy an account number.

Task : Add the possibility to copy an account number.

Issue : It takes too much effort to copy an account number.

Recommendation: Enable account number copying by holding the account number for a few seconds until the message ‘Account number was copied’ is shown in a small text field.

Problem #2: Button height is less than 40 pixels. 

Task: Check the clickable button zone.

Issue: The existing button height is not optimized for mobile. It is too small for a ‘touch’ to be made comfortably on the screen.

Recommendation: Review button and touch target heights. Ensure that the touch target height is at least 48 pixels or more. A touch target of this size results in physical size of about 9mm regardless of screen size. 

Problem #3 : Overloaded FAQ without a search function.

Task: Improve user interaction with information on the screen.

Issue: There are too many topics in the FAQ and it overwhelms users without the presence of a search bar.

Recommendation: Segregate FAQ to related topics to ensure users spend less time finding the right solution. Allow users to navigate the FAQ by categories. It’s also a good idea to include a search bar, which lets users instantly locate a topic in the FAQ. Include a feedback form for users to suggest potential improvements.

Problem #4: Overloaded screens

Task : Improve user interaction with information on the screen.

Issue : A large number of paragraphs and nested sections results in a cluttered interface. This may lead to an unpleasant user experience, particularly for advanced users. 

Recommendation:

Rethink sections and iterate on nesting information. Make on-screen navigation easier by adding sections. Transition to new screens and use overlays for separate contextual information.to reduce the burden on users.

Good Points

• A lot of useful information without logging in/signing up to the app.
• Easily-understandable navigation.
• Users can make common transactions in a few clicks.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

Less is often more in an app design. Adding more information than required may overwhelm and confuse users. Instead, ask whether it is necessary before adding in elements, features, or information to the app. The app should be strikingly simple, yet allows users to easily achieve their purposes. 

Problem #1: Not enough contrast between important elements and descriptions.

Task: Arrange and structure the information based on hierarchy and priority.

Issue: There is a lack of contrast between important graphics and texts. The poor choice of colors and typographies results in the failure of displaying the data vividly to the users.

Recommendation: Highlight the differences between primary and secondary information with the right contrast. Use the right color, size, and typography to display data unambiguously. Keep information simple and reduce unnecessary elements to simplify user navigation.

Problem #2: Unnecessary profile on the internal screen

Task : Define where the profile information ought to be shown in the application architecture.

Issue : The profile call icon is displayed in random and non-obvious places, making it hard for users to access profile information.

Recommendation: Define the architectural mapping of the profile in the application, i.e. in the menu or settings. Determine the level of the profile to be displayed.

Problem #3: Different features overloading the main screen.

Task : Organize and structure information on the main screen based on hierarchy and priority.

Issue : The main screen is overloaded with different features which cause overlapping and confusion. Some information in the dialogue is suppressed by others, making them insignificant.

Recommendation: Create a minimalist design without unnecessary elements that could disrupt the user experience. Reduce uncertainty by removing redundant content and redistribute functionality by reducing on-screen content.

Problem #4: Overloaded Account Page, which does not separate ‘Profile Settings” and “Profile Information”

Task: Restructure the overloaded account page.

Issue: The profile screen contains too many items that are not relevant in context. 

Recommendation : Change the application’s structure by adding an additional ‘Settings” menu item. Place related contextual items in the new menu item. 

Problem #5: Lack of visual hierarchy

Task: Review and edit phone details in Profile Settings

Issue : It’s difficult to ascertain how the information is categorized. Also, there are issues with duplicate information. 

Recommendation: Establish an account visual hierarchy and restructure the information around it to provide clarity.

Problem #6: Too many similar information

Task: Choose the right Account settings field to interact with.

Issue : Too much information that belongs to different parts are strikingly similar.

Recommendation: Separate information on the ‘User Profile & Settings and “Help & Support” section. Rather than having them on the same list, keep the information on separate screens. 

Problem #7: Complicated navigation for this screen.

Task: To observe activity information.

Issue : Navigation on this screen is an arduous process due to its complicated multi-level structure.

Recommendation: Restructure the information by decreasing the nesting levels and taking clarity into account.

Problem #8: Similar style for icons and graphic elements

Task: To choose the right variant of support for solving some issues.

Issue : Users are unable to distinguish between the icons as they look similar. As a result, users wasted time in reading through all the descriptions. 

Solution 1: Delete similar icons.

Solution 2 : Create a single style for all icons and graphic elements to help users recognize the features intuitively.  

Problem #9: Visualization charts lack clarity

Task : To observe stats and recent activity

Issue : The charts and graphs lack clarity, and in some cases, parts of the screens are empty and not purposeful.

Recommendation: Fix and improve how charts and graphs are visualized. Helpful details can be included in the empty areas.

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

An app should have the intelligence to detect and help users to recover from errors. Instead of displaying error codes, the dialog should provide details and instructions intelligible to non-technical users. 

Good points: The Chase app provides hints everywhere and includes field validations.

10. Help and documentation

Ideally, you’ll want to build an app that intuitively lets users navigate through. However, there are some cases where users got stuck and in need of help. In such cases, help and documentation will come in handy, particularly those that are simple and direct.

Good points: Users can easily access the documentation and support on the Chase app.

Fixing Issues After UX Review

As you conduct a UX review, you could potentially discover more issues than our heuristic evaluation example. It will be prudent to use an impact/value map to determine which issues should you focus on.

Typically, you’ll want to focus on issues that deliver high impact when they are fixed. Based on this impact/value chart, we’ll suggest working issues that are above the line.

Delivering a seamless user experience is key to attracting and retaining users on your app. We’ve shown how to use Heuristic evaluation with the Chase app as an example in this article. With the same process, you’re able to hone in on UX issues on your app.

Tell us about your idea. We will reach you out.

Heuristic Analysis for UX: How to Run a Usability Evaluation

What is a heuristic analysis? How do you run one effectively by employing a group of usability experts to dramatically improve a product’s UX?

By Miklos Philips

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

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Design is an investment, not an expense. At the risk of stating the obvious: It’s not enough to design a nice-looking product; it also has to be usable , and if you are to extract the largest ROI from a product, its usability—which generally refers to ease of use—takes on a vital importance.

Well-designed products have excellent usability, and because usability is a significant contributor to product quality, it elevates the user experience.

There are a few ways a product’s usability can be tested: an inspection method called a heuristic analysis is one of them. This usually means running a heuristic evaluation on a product, whether it already exists or is brand new.

What Are Heuristics and What Is a Heuristic Analysis?

A heuristic analysis is used to identify a product’s common usability issues so that the problems can be resolved, consequently improving the user’s satisfaction and experience and raising the chances of a digital product’s success overall.

Focusing on usability, a heuristic analysis is an evaluation method in which one or more experts compare a digital product’s design to a list of predefined design principles (commonly referred to as heuristics) and identify where the product is not following those principles.

A specific set of heuristics contains empirical rules of thumb, best practices, standards, rules, and conventions that have been tested or observed over long periods of time. Sticking to these heuristic standards produce UX designs that simply work better.

Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles (the ‘heuristics’). — Jakob Nielsen, The Nielsen Norman Group

A heuristic evaluation is not a one-on-one moderated test. Neither is it a cognitive walkthrough , which is a usability inspection method. With cognitive walkthroughs, the emphasis is on tasks. The process involves identifying the user’s goals and coming up with a task list to achieve those goals. Evaluators then flag problems users may have as they use the product.

A heuristic evaluation expert—the evaluator—is ideally a usability testing expert who has deep understanding of the chosen set of heuristics. They would typically come from the disciplines of human factors, interaction design (IXD), HCI (human-computer interaction) and/or UX design , with complementary backgrounds in disciplines such as psychology, computer science, information sciences, and commerce/business.

During the evaluation, individual evaluators assign a “severity rating” to each of the usability issues identified. As a rule, UX designers work their way down from the most critical issues on the backlog to the least critical. (In order to get the biggest UX bang for the buck from a heuristic evaluation, it is typical for the design team to give issues with the highest severity rating the most attention.)

It’s useful to note that even though a single experienced UX pro is usually adept at identifying the most critical usability issues, a group of evaluators is generally the best option. Between 5 and 8 individuals is the sweet spot: They should be able to flag over 80% of usability problems. However—as the graph below demonstrates—using more than 10 heuristic evaluators will not yield better results.

The core reason to perform a heuristic analysis is to improve the usability of a digital product. Another reason is efficiency (in this context, “efficiency” is the speed with which a product can be used as a direct consequence of better usability). “Usability” refers to quality components such as learnability, discoverability, memorability, flexibility, user satisfaction, and the handling of errors. A product’s UX is greatly improved when these components are delivered at a high quality.

When to do it?

There are no hard and fast rules. A heuristic analysis can be performed at any advanced stage of the design process (Obviously, it would not be productive to do it too early). With new products, a heuristic analysis is usually performed later in the design phase—after wireframing and prototyping and before visual design and UI development begins. Do it too late and making changes will become costly. Existing products found to have poor usability will often have a heuristic analysis run on them before a redesign begins.

What is the expected deliverable?

As with other usability tests or inspection methods, the typical deliverable is a consolidated report which not only identifies usability issues, but ranks them on a scale from severe to mildly problematic. For the most part, a heuristic evaluation report doesn’t include solutions—fortunately, many usability problems have fairly obvious fixes, and once identified the design team can start working on them.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Heuristic Evaluation

Advantages:.

• Uncovers many usability problems and significantly improves a product’s UX
• Cheaper and faster than full-blown usability tests that require the recruitment of participants, coordination, equipment, running the test, recording, analyzing, etc.
• Heuristics can help the evaluators focus on specific problems (i.e., lack of system feedback, poor discoverability, error prevention, etc.)
• Heuristic evaluation does not carry the ethical and practical issues/problems associated with inspection methods involving real users
• Evaluating designs using a set of heuristics can help identify usability problems with specific user flows and determine the impact on the overall user experience

Disadvantages:

• Experienced usability experts are often hard to find and may be expensive
• The value of issues uncovered by evaluators is limited by their skill level
• At times, a heuristic analysis may set off false alarms: Issues that would not necessarily have a negative effect on the overall UX if left alone are sometimes flagged to be fixed
• Unlike cognitive walkthroughs , heuristic evaluation is based on prejudged notions of what makes “good” usability
• If the evaluators are not part of the design or dev team , they may be unaware of any technical limitations on the design

How to Run an Effective Heuristic Analysis

Preparation is key to running the analysis well. Following an established set of steps ensures that a heuristic analysis will run efficiently and yield maximum results. Here’s a heuristic analysis checklist:

• Define the scope.
• Know the business requirements and demographic of the end-users.
• Decide on which reporting tools and heuristics to use.
• Evaluate the experience and identify usability issues.
• Analyze, aggregate, and present the results.

Step 1: Define the scope.

On both large and small projects, budgets may be limited. This may be especially the case on large eCommerce sites: For example, it may not be feasible to examine the entire site, as it could take a very long time and therefore become too expensive.

This is where scoping the heuristic analysis comes in.

Parameters may be set to examine only the most crucial areas of the site. The limited scope may only have the capacity to focus on specific user flows and functionalities, such as log in/register, search and browse, product detail pages, shopping cart, and checkout.

Step 2: Know the business requirements and the users.

First, the evaluators should understand the business needs of the product/system. Second, as with any typical user-centered design process, it’s crucial to know the users. To facilitate heuristic analysis, specific user personas must be established. Are the end-users novices or experts? What are the user demographics?

For example, although heuristics were meant to work as universal usability standards, perhaps special emphasis needs to be placed on accessibility for an older audience—or maybe diverse, multicultural audiences need to be kept in mind.

Step 3: Decide on which reporting tools and heuristics to use.

It’s incredibly important to decide which set of heuristics the evaluators are going to use. A selected set of heuristics will provide common guidelines against which each of the experts can make their evaluation, as well as ensure that they are all on the same page. Without it, the heuristic analysis process could fall into utter chaos—produce inconsistent, conflicting reports and ultimately become ineffective.

As part of the heuristic evaluation plan, a system, a format, and which tools to use should be agreed upon. This could be Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, or some other common reporting tool that everyone can use and to which the “observer” will have easy access. (More about the observer later.)

Jakob Nielsen ’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design are probably the most commonly used set of usability heuristics. There are others such as the list of six Design Principles for Usability by Don Norman , and the 20 Usability Heuristics by Susan Weinschenk and Dean Barker listed below. There is even a set that contains no less than 247 Web Usability Guidelines by Dr. David Travis .

Step 4: Evaluate the experience and identify usability issues.

When a heuristic evaluation is performed with a group of experts, each individual evaluates the UI separately. This approach to the expert review is done in order to ensure the evaluations will be independent and unbiased. When all the evaluations are complete, the findings are then collated and aggregated.

In order to run the evaluation efficiently, it’s well advised to use an “observer.” It may add a little overhead to the evaluation sessions, but is definitely worth it as there are many advantages. The observer participates in every session and handles taking the notes, so is able to deliver one consolidated report at the end of the evaluation process, rather than there being a separate set of documents from each evaluator.

During the inspection, the observer may also help answer questions from evaluators with limited domain expertise (for example, in the case of a specialized enterprise UI targeting expert users). They may also assist in guiding the session when a prototype with limited functionality is being evaluated.

In order to help the team move toward design solutions, findings must describe the issues precisely. Vague notes such as “this layout will slow down the registration process” are not at all productive or of any value. Notes need to be specific and clearly identify the heuristic that the issue violates. For example: “During registration the UI layout is confusing, inconsistent and violates the rules of user control, feedback and consistency (#1, #20, and #16 respectively).”

For the sake of speed, UIs may be marked up visually with notes that can be consolidated later (see the one below). This method helps to quickly aggregate the expert’s final notes, and the observer doesn’t have to search for the UI components being addressed. They can also be coded for easy identification by the design team.

Step 5: Analyze, aggregate, and present the results.

At the conclusion of a heuristic analysis, the evaluation manager—or observer—carries out some housekeeping and organization such as removing duplicates and collating the findings. The observer’s next step is to aggregate the heuristic evaluation reports and build a table that includes the severity ratings of usability issues and from which the design team can prioritize.

For usability testing to be valuable, study findings must clearly identify issues and help the team move toward design solutions. – The Nielsen Norman Group

The output from a heuristic analysis should be a list of usability problems that not only identify specific problems, but reference the usability heuristics the problems violate (preferable a code number for easy reference). For example, the above screen points out that using low contrast text in the UI violates the heuristics of “visibility” and “discoverability.”

Using reference codes from the chosen set of heuristics will help build a data table which can then be sorted. When the design team sees that a large number of issues reference a small number of violations (identified by code), they can focus their energies on improving them. For example, there may be widespread issues of visibility and discoverability as in the example above.

Heuristic analysis doesn’t necessarily provide fixes to usability issues, nor does it provide a “success probability score” if the design improvements are to be implemented. However, because a heuristic evaluation compares the UI against a set of known usability heuristics, in most cases it is remarkably easy to identify the solution to a specific problem and come up with a more compelling design.

Some new apps in development and many mainstream products suffer from poor usability. Most of them would benefit from a dose of heuristic analysis performed by experts and, as a consequence, see a dramatic improvement in their UX without breaking the budget.

A single experienced UX expert can uncover a substantial number of usability issues during a heuristic analysis. However, if time and money allows, between 5 and 8 experts seems to be the sweet spot—this option should uncover most usability issues and offers a significant ROI. This ROI would be based on the increase in user productivity as well as estimated on the expected increase in product sales due to higher customer satisfaction, better ratings, and an uptick in positive reviews.

Please Note

It must be mentioned that even though heuristic analyses are definitely a solid way to identify usability problems regarding digital products, they should not be relied upon as the only source of data. Studies show limitations to expert review because of psychological reasons such as cognitive bias.

If possible, in order to achieve optimal results, heuristic analysis should be combined with cognitive walkthroughs and one-on-one user testing. And that should produce awesome product designs.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• Heuristic Principles for Mobile Interfaces
• If You’re Not Using UX Data, It’s Not UX Design
• Enhance User Flow: A Guide to UX Analysis
• The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods
• The Ultimate UX Guide for Designers and Organizations
• Product Design

Miklos Philips

London, United Kingdom

Member since May 20, 2016

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

The theory behind heuristic evaluations.

November 1, 1994 1994-11-01

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Heuristic evaluation   (Nielsen and Molich, 1990; Nielsen 1994) is a usability engineering method for finding the usability problems in a user interface design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process. Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles (the "heuristics").

In general, heuristic evaluation is difficult for a single individual to do because one person will never be able to find all the usability problems in an interface. Luckily, experience from many different projects has shown that different people find different usability problems. Therefore, it is possible to improve the effectiveness of the method significantly by involving multiple evaluators. Figure 1 shows an example from a case study of heuristic evaluation where 19 evaluators were used to find 16 usability problems in a voice response system allowing customers access to their bank accounts (Nielsen 1992). Each of the black squares in Figure 1 indicates the finding of one of the usability problems by one of the evaluators. The figure clearly shows that there is a substantial amount of nonoverlap between the sets of usability problems found by different evaluators. It is certainly true that some usability problems are so easy to find that they are found by almost everybody, but there are also some problems that are found by very few evaluators. Furthermore, one cannot just identify the best evaluator and rely solely on that person's findings. First, it is not necessarily true that the same person will be the best evaluator every time. Second, some of the hardest-to-find usability problems (represented by the leftmost columns in Figure 1) are found by evaluators who do not otherwise find many usability problems. Therefore, it is necessary to involve multiple evaluators in any heuristic evaluation (see below for a discussion of the best number of evaluators). My recommendation is normally to use three to five evaluators since one does not gain that much additional information by using larger numbers.

Heuristic evaluation is performed by having each individual evaluator inspect the interface alone. Only after all evaluations have been completed are the evaluators allowed to communicate and have their findings aggregated. This procedure is important in order to ensure independent and unbiased evaluations from each evaluator. The results of the evaluation can be recorded either as written reports from each evaluator or by having the evaluators verbalize their comments to an observer as they go through the interface. Written reports have the advantage of presenting a formal record of the evaluation, but require an additional effort by the evaluators and the need to be read and aggregated by an evaluation manager. Using an observer adds to the overhead of each evaluation session, but reduces the workload on the evaluators. Also, the results of the evaluation are available fairly soon after the last evaluation session since the observer only needs to understand and organize one set of personal notes, not a set of reports written by others. Furthermore, the observer can assist the evaluators in operating the interface in case of problems, such as an unstable prototype, and help if the evaluators have limited domain expertise and need to have certain aspects of the interface explained.

In a user test situation, the observer (normally called the "experimenter") has the responsibility of interpreting the user's actions in order to infer how these actions are related to the usability issues in the design of the interface. This makes it possible to conduct user testing even if the users do not know anything about user interface design. In contrast, the responsibility for analyzing the user interface is placed with the evaluator in a heuristic evaluation session, so a possible observer only needs to record the evaluator's comments about the interface, but does not need to interpret the evaluator's actions.

Two further differences between heuristic evaluation sessions and traditional user testing are the willingness of the observer to answer questions from the evaluators during the session and the extent to which the evaluators can be provided with hints on using the interface. For traditional user testing, one normally wants to discover the mistakes users make when using the interface; the experimenters are therefore reluctant to provide more help than absolutely necessary. Also, users are requested to discover the answers to their questions by using the system rather than by having them answered by the experimenter. For the heuristic evaluation of a domain-specific application, it would be unreasonable to refuse to answer the evaluators' questions about the domain, especially if nondomain experts are serving as the evaluators. On the contrary, answering the evaluators' questions will enable them to better assess the usability of the user interface with respect to the characteristics of the domain. Similarly, when evaluators have problems using the interface, they can be given hints on how to proceed in order not to waste precious evaluation time struggling with the mechanics of the interface. It is important to note, however, that the evaluators should not be given help until they are clearly in trouble and have commented on the usability problem in question.

Typically, a heuristic evaluation session for an individual evaluator lasts one or two hours. Longer evaluation sessions might be necessary for larger or very complicated interfaces with a substantial number of dialogue elements, but it would be better to split up the evaluation into several smaller sessions, each concentrating on a part of the interface.

During the evaluation session, the evaluator goes through the interface several times and inspects the various dialogue elements and compares them with a list of recognized usability principles (the heuristics). These heuristics are general rules that seem to describe common properties of usable interfaces. In addition to the checklist of general heuristics to be considered for all dialogue elements, the evaluator obviously is also allowed to consider any additional usability principles or results that come to mind that may be relevant for any specific dialogue element. Furthermore, it is possible to develop category-specific heuristics that apply to a specific class of products as a supplement to the general heuristics. One way of building a supplementary list of category-specific heuristics is to perform competitive analysis and user testing of existing products in the given category and try to abstract principles to explain the usability problems that are found (Dykstra 1993).

In principle, the evaluators decide on their own how they want to proceed with evaluating the interface. A general recommendation would be that they go through the interface at least twice, however. The first pass would be intended to get a feel for the flow of the interaction and the general scope of the system. The second pass then allows the evaluator to focus on specific interface elements while knowing how they fit into the larger whole.

Since the evaluators are not using the system as such (to perform a real task), it is possible to perform heuristic evaluation of user interfaces that exist on paper only and have not yet been implemented (Nielsen 1990). This makes heuristic evaluation suited for use early in the usability engineering lifecycle.

If the system is intended as a walk-up-and-use interface for the general population or if the evaluators are domain experts, it will be possible to let the evaluators use the system without further assistance. If the system is domain-dependent and the evaluators are fairly naive with respect to the domain of the system, it will be necessary to assist the evaluators to enable them to use the interface. One approach that has been applied successfully is to supply the evaluators with a typical usage scenario , listing the various steps a user would take to perform a sample set of realistic tasks. Such a scenario should be constructed on the basis of a task analysis of the actual users and their work in order to be as representative as possible of the eventual use of the system.

The output from using the heuristic evaluation method is a list of usability problems in the interface with references to those usability principles that were violated by the design in each case in the opinion of the evaluator. It is not sufficient for evaluators to simply say that they do not like something; they should explain why they do not like it with reference to the heuristics or to other usability results. The evaluators should try to be as specific as possible and should list each usability problem separately. For example, if there are three things wrong with a certain dialogue element, all three should be listed with reference to the various usability principles that explain why each particular aspect of the interface element is a usability problem. There are two main reasons to note each problem separately: First, there is a risk of repeating some problematic aspect of a dialogue element, even if it were to be completely replaced with a new design, unless one is aware of all its problems. Second, it may not be possible to fix all usability problems in an interface element or to replace it with a new design, but it could still be possible to fix some of the problems if they are all known.

Heuristic evaluation does not provide a systematic way to generate fixes to the usability problems or a way to assess the probable quality of any redesigns. However, because heuristic evaluation aims at explaining each observed usability problem with reference to established usability principles, it will often be fairly easy to generate a revised design according to the guidelines provided by the violated principle for good interactive systems. Also, many usability problems have fairly obvious fixes as soon as they have been identified.

For example, if the problem is that the user cannot copy information from one window to another, then the solution is obviously to include such a copy feature. Similarly, if the problem is the use of inconsistent typography in the form of upper/lower case formats and fonts, the solution is obviously to pick a single typographical format for the entire interface. Even for these simple examples, however, the designer has no information to help design the exact changes to the interface (e.g., how to enable the user to make the copies or on which of the two font formats to standardize).

One possibility for extending the heuristic evaluation method to provide some design advice is to conduct a debriefing session after the last evaluation session. The participants in the debriefing should include the evaluators, any observer used during the evaluation sessions, and representatives of the design team. The debriefing session would be conducted primarily in a brainstorming mode and would focus on discussions of possible redesigns to address the major usability problems and general problematic aspects of the design. A debriefing is also a good opportunity for discussing the positive aspects of the design, since heuristic evaluation does not otherwise address this important issue.

Heuristic evaluation is explicitly intended as a "discount usability engineering" method. Independent research (Jeffries et al. 1991) has indeed confirmed that heuristic evaluation is a very efficient usability engineering method. One of my case studies found a benefit-cost ratio for a heuristic evaluation project of 48: The cost of using the method was about $10,500 and the expected benefits were about $500,000 (Nielsen 1994). As a discount usability engineering method, heuristic evaluation is not guaranteed to provide "perfect" results or to find every last usability problem in an interface.

In This Article:

Determining the number of evaluators.

In principle, individual evaluators can perform a heuristic evaluation of a user interface on their own, but the experience from several projects indicates that fairly poor results are achieved when relying on single evaluators. Averaged over six of my projects, single evaluators found only 35 percent of the usability problems in the interfaces. However, since different evaluators tend to find different problems, it is possible to achieve substantially better performance by aggregating the evaluations from several evaluators. Figure 2 shows the proportion of usability problems found as more and more evaluators are added. The figure clearly shows that there is a nice payoff from using more than one evaluator. It would seem reasonable to recommend the use of about five evaluators, but certainly at least three. The exact number of evaluators to use would depend on a cost-benefit analysis. More evaluators should obviously be used in cases where usability is critical or when large payoffs can be expected due to extensive or mission-critical use of a system.

Nielsen and Landauer (1993) present such a model based on the following prediction formula for the number of usability problems found in a heuristic evaluation:

ProblemsFound( i ) = N(1 - (1-l) i )

where ProblemsFound( i ) indicates the number of different usability problems found by aggregating reports from i independent evaluators, N indicates the total number of usability problems in the interface, and l indicates the proportion of all usability problems found by a single evaluator. In six case studies (Nielsen and Landauer 1993), the values of l ranged from 19 percent to 51 percent with a mean of 34 percent. The values of N ranged from 16 to 50 with a mean of 33. Using this formula results in curves very much like that shown in Figure 2, though the exact shape of the curve will vary with the values of the parameters N and l , which again will vary with the characteristics of the project.

In order to determine the optimal number of evaluators, one needs a cost-benefit model of heuristic evaluation. The first element in such a model is an accounting for the cost of using the method, considering both fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs are those that need to be paid no matter how many evaluators are used; these include time to plan the evaluation, get the materials ready, and write up the report or otherwise communicate the results. Variable costs are those additional costs that accrue each time one additional evaluator is used; they include the loaded salary of that evaluator as well as the cost of analyzing the evaluator's report and the cost of any computer or other resources used during the evaluation session. Based on published values from several projects the fixed cost of a heuristic evaluation is estimated to be between $3,700 and $4,800 and the variable cost of each evaluator is estimated to be between $410 and $900.

The actual fixed and variable costs will obviously vary from project to project and will depend on each company's cost structure and on the complexity of the interface being evaluated. For illustration, consider a sample project with fixed costs for heuristic evaluation of $4,000 and variable costs of $600 per evaluator. In this project, the cost of using heuristic evaluation with i evaluators is thus $(4,000 + 600 i ).

The benefits from heuristic evaluation are mainly due to the finding of usability problems, though some continuing education benefits may be realized to the extent that the evaluators increase their understanding of usability by comparing their own evaluation reports with those of other evaluators. For this sample project, assume that it is worth $15,000 to find each usability problem, using a value derived by Nielsen and Landauer (1993) from several published studies. For real projects, one would obviously need to estimate the value of finding usability problems based on the expected user population. For software to be used in-house, this value can be estimated based on the expected increase in user productivity; for software to be sold on the open market, it can be estimated based on the expected increase in sales due to higher user satisfaction or better review ratings. Note that real value only derives from those usability problems that are in fact fixed before the software ships. Since it is impossible to fix all usability problems, the value of each problem found is only some proportion of the value of a fixed problem.

Figure 3 shows the varying ratio of the benefits to the costs for various numbers of evaluators in the sample project. The curve shows that the optimal number of evaluators in this example is four, confirming the general observation that heuristic evaluation seems to work best with three to five evaluators. In the example, a heuristic evaluation with four evaluators would cost $6,400 and would find usability problems worth $395,000.

• Dykstra, D. J. 1993. A Comparison of Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testing: The Efficacy of a Domain-Specific Heuristic Checklist . Ph.D. diss., Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.
• Jeffries, R., Miller, J. R., Wharton, C., and Uyeda, K. M. 1991. User interface evaluation in the real world: A comparison of four techniques. Proceedings ACM CHI'91 Conference (New Orleans, LA, April 28-May 2), 119-124.
• Molich, R., and Nielsen, J. (1990). Improving a human-computer dialogue, Communications of the ACM 33 , 3 (March), 338-348.
• Nielsen, J. 1990. Paper versus computer implementations as mockup scenarios for heuristic evaluation. Proc. IFIP INTERACT90 Third Intl. Conf. Human-Computer Interaction (Cambridge, U.K., August 27-31), 315-320.
• Nielsen, J., and Landauer, T. K. 1993. A mathematical model of the finding of usability problems. Proceedings ACM/IFIP INTERCHI'93 Conference (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 24-29), 206-213.
• Nielsen, J., and Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces, Proc. ACM CHI'90 Conf. (Seattle, WA, 1-5 April), 249-256.
• Nielsen, J. 1992. Finding usability problems through heuristic evaluation. Proceedings ACM CHI'92 Conference (Monterey, CA, May 3-7), 373-380.
• Nielsen, J. (1994). Heuristic evaluation. In Nielsen, J., and Mack, R.L. (Eds.), Usability Inspection Methods . John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

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Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

What is heuristic evaluation (he).

Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues. Evaluators use established heuristics (e.g., Nielsen-Molich’s) and reveal insights that can help design teams enhance product usability from early in development.

“By their very nature, heuristic shortcuts will produce biases.” — Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

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Learn how to guide effective designs using heuristic evaluation.

Heuristic Evaluation: Ten Commandments for Helpful Expert Analysis

In 1990, web usability pioneers Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich published the landmark article “Improving a Human-Computer Dialogue”. It contained a set of principles—or heuristics—which industry specialists soon began to adopt to assess interfaces in human-computer interaction . A heuristic is a fast and practical way to solve problems or make decisions.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

In user experience (UX) design , professional evaluators use heuristic evaluation to determine a design’s/product’s usability systematically. As experts, they go through a checklist of criteria to find flaws that design teams overlook. The Nielsen-Molich heuristics state that a system should:

Keep users informed about its status appropriately and promptly .

Show information in ways users understand from how the real world operates, and in the users’ language .

Offer users control and let them undo errors easily .

Be consistent so users aren’t confused over what different words, icons, etc. mean.

Prevent errors – a system should either avoid conditions where errors arise or warn users before they take risky actions (e.g., “Are you sure you want to do this?” messages).

Have visible information, instructions, etc. to let users recognize options, actions, etc. instead of forcing them to rely on memory.

Be flexible so experienced users find faster ways to attain goals.

Have no clutter , containing only relevant information for current tasks.

Provide plain-language help regarding errors and solutions.

List concise steps in lean, searchable documentation for overcoming problems.

Heuristic Evaluation: Pros and Cons

When you apply the Nielsen-Molich heuristics as an expert, you have powerful tools to measure a design’s usability. However, like any method, there are pros and cons:

Pros of Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristics can help highlight potential usability issues early in the design process. 

It is a fast and inexpensive tool compared with other methods involving real users. 

Cons of Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation depends on the knowledge and expertise of the evaluators. Training the evaluators or hiring external evaluators might increase the time and money required for conducting the evaluation.

Heuristic evaluation is based on assumptions about what “good” usability is. As heuristics are based on research, this is often true. However, the evaluations are no substitute for testing with real users. These are, as the name suggests, only guidelines, and not rules that are set in stone. 

Heuristic evaluation can end up giving false alarms. In their article, “ Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation: A head-to-head comparison,” Robert Bailey, Robert Allan and P. Raiello found that 43% of 'problems' identified by experimental heuristic evaluations were not actually problems. Furthermore, evaluators could only identify 21% of genuine usability problems in comparison with usability testing.

A vital point is that heuristic evaluation, however helpful, is no substitute for usability testing.

How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

To conduct a heuristic evaluation, you can follow these steps:

Know what to test and how – Whether it’s the entire product or one procedure, clearly define the parameters of what to test and the objective.

Know your users and have clear definitions of the target audience’s goals, contexts, etc . User personas can help evaluators see things from the users’ perspectives.

Select 3–5 evaluators , ensuring their expertise in usability and the relevant industry.

Define the heuristics (around 5–10) – This will depend on the nature of the system/product/design. Consider adopting/adapting the Nielsen-Molich heuristics and/or using/defining others.

Brief evaluators on what to cover in a selection of tasks , suggesting a scale of severity codes (e.g., critical) to flag issues.

1st Walkthrough – Have evaluators use the product freely so they can identify elements to analyze.

2nd Walkthrough – Evaluators scrutinize individual elements according to the heuristics. They also examine how these fit into the overall design, clearly recording all issues encountered.

Debrief evaluators in a session so they can collate results for analysis and suggest fixes.

Learn More about Heuristic Evaluation

Take our course Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide .

Take our course UX Design for Augmented Reality .

Find the refined Nielsen heuristics in the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design article.

Questions related to Heuristic Evaluation

When writing a heuristic evaluation report:

Start with a brief overview of the product or interface assessed and list the applied heuristics.

For each usability issue identified, explicitly state the violated heuristic, describe where it occurs in the interface, and explain its impact on user experience.

Provide specific recommendations to address each issue and prioritize them based on their severity to user experience.

Include visual aids like screenshots to help clarify the location and nature of the problems found.

For comprehensive insights and detailed instructions on conducting heuristic evaluations and writing practical reports, refer to How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation .

Heuristic evaluation differs from usability testing as it involves experts evaluating a product's user interface against established heuristics pinpointing usability issues, while usability testing involves real users completing tasks and identifying issues within the product. Heuristic evaluations are quicker and cost-effective, providing early insights, while usability testing offers an in-depth understanding of user interactions and experiences. For a comprehensive overview of usability testing, watch this video:

Heuristic evaluation is vital as it efficiently identifies usability problems in the design phase of product development, saving time and resources. Employing experts to review products against usability principles helps enhance user satisfaction and interaction and ensures a product's design is intuitive and user-friendly. This method is cost-effective and quick, making it a fundamental step in achieving optimal user experience and interface design.

An example of heuristic evaluation is when usability experts assess a website or application against established usability principles, or heuristics, to identify potential user experience issues. For instance, experts might evaluate the system's visibility of system status, user control, and freedom or match between the system and the real world. These evaluations help in uncovering usability problems early in the design process. For a detailed procedure for conducting a heuristic evaluation, refer to this article: How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation .

Compared to other methods, heuristic evaluation is a cost-effective and efficient way to determine design usability issues.

However, as discussed in the video, it may not be as effective as testing with real users when it comes to understanding the user experience fully. Heuristic evaluations, performed by experts, assess whether solutions conform to established usability guidelines, providing critical insights, especially in the early stages of design. Nonetheless, optimal outcomes usually result from combining this method with user testing, allowing designers to address expert opinions and real user experiences effectively.

To conduct a heuristic evaluation in UI, select a set of heuristics or guidelines like Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics. Next, assemble a group of usability experts and assign them to evaluate the interface independently, identifying issues that violate the chosen heuristics. Compile the found issues, prioritize them based on severity, and generate a report detailing the problems and suggested improvements. This article, How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation , provides a comprehensive guide on effectively performing heuristic evaluations in UI design.

Start conducting your own heuristic evaluations with the help of this template:

A weakness of heuristic analysis is its reliance on experts’ judgments, which may not accurately reflect user experiences and can overlook user-centric issues. While cost-effective, this method might miss problems identified through user testing, leading to unresolved potential usability issues. The subjective nature of heuristic evaluation can result in varied findings among evaluators, necessitating thorough analysis to discern the most critical usability concerns. Despite these limitations, heuristic analysis remains a valuable tool in the early design stages to identify glaring usability issues efficiently.

A heuristic checklist is a structured tool used in heuristic evaluation to assess the user interface design against established usability principles or "heuristics." This checklist helps identify usability issues in a product, focusing on areas like user control, consistency, and error prevention. It's employed by experts to quickly spot potential problems in the early stages of design, aiding in the refinement of the user experience. For a more in-depth understanding and to explore the components of a heuristic checklist, refer to this article: How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation .

Start conducting your own heuristic evaluations with the help of any (or all!) of the different sets of heuristics:

Frank Spillers and Experience Dynamics’ USE Scorecard:

Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich’s universal usability heuristics:

Enrico Bertini, Silvia Gabrielli and Stephen Kimani’s modified heuristics for mobile:

The most common heuristic tool is Jakob Nielsen’s “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design.” It’s widely recognized and utilized for its effectiveness in identifying usability issues in user interface (UI) design. 

An illustration depicting Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. They’re called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines.

Visibility of System Status : Keep users informed about what's going on through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.

Match between System and the Real World : Use words and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.

User Control and Freedom : Provide ways for users to easily reverse actions and exit from unintended states.

Consistency and Standards : Avoid user confusion by being consistent and following platform conventions.

Error Prevention : Eliminate error-prone conditions and confirm users' actions that have severe consequences.

Recognition Rather Than Recall : Minimize users' memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible and easily accessible.

Flexibility and Efficiency of Use : Allow users to tailor actions and provide shortcuts to accelerate experienced users’ interaction.

Aesthetic and Minimalist Design : Avoid unnecessary elements that can diminish the overall user experience.

Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors : Provide clear and plain-language error messages to help users understand, diagnose, and recover from errors.

Help and Documentation : Make help and documentation accessible, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be overly large.

This set focuses on essential principles such as user control, error prevention, and consistency, offering a straightforward approach to improving user experience by addressing the most prevalent and impactful aspects of interface design.

To learn heuristic evaluation, take with the User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide course. This course provides detailed insights and practical knowledge on heuristic evaluation, enabling learners to enhance user experience effectively. Additionally, explore comprehensive articles and literature on heuristic evaluation on the IxDF website to deepen your understanding and skills in this area. Both resources are invaluable for anyone looking to master heuristic evaluation techniques in user interface design.

Literature on Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Here’s the entire UX literature on Heuristic Evaluation (HE) by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Take a deep dive into Heuristic Evaluation (HE) with our course The Practical Guide to Usability .

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All open-source articles on Heuristic Evaluation (HE)

Heuristic evaluation: how to conduct a heuristic evaluation.

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What is a heuristic analysis and why is it important?

What do you consider is the most important aspect of a website? Interface design is one of the first options that comes to mind; it should be “aesthetic” and in line with your business, but something that must be kept very in mind is the usability of this digital asset.

What happens when you enter a website and it takes a while to load or has usability issues? Easy, you get out of it and search for another option. In this case, an attractive and very well developed design can be overshadowed because it does not provide a satisfactory user experience .

For this reason, it is essential that in addition to an eye-catching web design , your digital asset is fully functional and provides each user with a clean, satisfactory and problem free experience.

According to a study conducted by Toptal, 88% of users would NOT return to a website where they had a bad user experience ; Additionally, this study claims that a proper UX design can achieve a 400% increase in conversion rate . Do you see the importance of taking into account the usability of your website?

This is where heuristic analysis becomes a perfect tool to improve your digital marketing strategy and solve the problems that might be delaying the growth of your digital asset , in this case, your website. I will tell you everything you need to know.

What is a heuristic analysis and what is it for? 

A heuristic analysis is a test that is run on digital assets such as websites or applications, with the objective of identifying usability issues of them. This test can be performed in any stage, as the UX design should always be analyzed constantly to make sure the target audience is having a satisfactory experience.

By performing a heuristic analysis on a website or application common problems can be solved on the user experience that usually stop the success of a digital product . The method used to develop this analysis consists of taking some heuristic principles , for example, those developed by Jakob Nielsen , to use the product and register the usability issues that it has, based on the mentioned principles. In this way, the result can be a digital product that is coherent, efficient and satisfactory for the user.

Heuristic principles of Jakob Nielsen

Although currently there are different types of heuristic analysis, some of the most accepted are those developed by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich in 1990. In this heuristic, 10 principles were developed that establish the parameters for an efficient UX design:

• Visibility of system status

The website or application must show the user the progress on the executed action and the status of their request. For example, if a user is in an e-commerce and adds a product to the shopping cart, the ideal is for the website to show them – in a coherent period of time – the action and its progress as “You added X product to your shopping cart, do you want to continue shopping or check out?”

• Match between the system and the real world

UX design should be focused on structuring a website or application in a natural and logical way, which allows the user to feel familiar with the platform. This is achieved through the correct placement of buttons, familiar concepts and words, and information that allows a simple experience.

• User control and freedom

It is very common that the users make mistakes on a website or application: from an adjustment that they did not like in a photo editing app, to a product that they no longer want to buy in a marketplace.

This is why this principle talks about how easy it should be for users to undo, edit, eliminate or cancel an action in a simple and visible way, which does not force them to carry out the process from scratch.

• Consistency and standards

Yes, being different and standing out in a world as competitive as the digital one is important, but in the case of UX design it is recommended to adhere to the standards of icons, visual shapes and resources, so that the user knows how to use the platform in a intuitive way by clicking or moving within the virtual environment.

For example, buttons like the shopping cart, log in, return to the previous page, among others, should be kept as we know them, as they will be more identifiable for the user.

• Error prevention

Errors are always present and the best way to deal with them is through prevention. Therefore, one of the heuristic principles of Nielsen is to help the user to avoid these errors: Have you seen the confirmation messages that appear on different platforms? These types of pop-ups that ask you if you really want to place the order, eliminate your account, request the service, etc. They allow you to prevent an action that the user does not want to perform by sending a confirmation message before executing it.

• Recognition rather than recall

It is ideal that to create a better UX experience the elements, actions and options are made visible on the different screens of the interface, as the user will be able to navigate the platform in a predictable way thanks to the contextual help offered. A good example of this heuristic is the search terms Google suggests when you type something in the search engine.

• Flexibility and efficient use

Heuristic analysis is always in favor of facilitating the user experience, which is why it must be taken into account that the final product will be used by people with all types of experiences, so it is ideal to integrate accelerators that allow you to identify related categories, useful links, keyboard shortcuts, etc.

• Aesthetic and minimalist design

It is fundamental that the website or application design does not “distract” the user with irrelevant information that delays their actions within the platform in an unnecessary way. Think of Google: a website with a white background, its logo and a search bar were enough to make it a technology giant.

• Help users to recognize their errors

This principle seeks to complement error prevention by helping users to identify the process they performed wrong: for example, when you fill a form and you do not realize that some information was missing, when you click send, a message appears that details the missing information.

Error messages should be simple and clear, in addition to indicating the error and providing guidance to the user to resolve it.

• Help and documentation

The user must be provided with complementary information that allows them to clarify any type of doubts that arise during the platform navigation. This information must be consolidated in a help service or FAQ page that clearly and precisely details the steps to follow. 

How to perform a heuristic analysis?

As in all types of tactics within a digital marketing strategy , to carry out a heuristic analysis , strategic planning is needed that integrates the design team and the group that will be in charge of evaluating the platform.

It is ideal that as a first step the scope and objectives of the analysis are established, to understand why it will be carried out. Afterwards, a study must be carried out on the target audience, since in this way their needs and pain points will be taken into account.

After having this general understanding, the heuristic principles on which to work must be chosen. At this point you can begin to develop a system to detect and document errors.

Finally, discoveries must be grouped and the necessary improvements made over the digital asset on which we are working.

Remember that although heuristic analysis can be carried out at any stage of development, it is ideal that its principles are taken into account from the initial steps, as this way you will have a more effective workflow that will allow you to achieve your objectives in a more efficient way.

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A Comparison Between Performing a Heuristic Evaluation Based on a Formal Process Using a System and the Traditional Way: A Case Study

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• Adrián Lecaros   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6987-9306 10 ,
• Arturo Moquillaza   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7521-8755 10 ,
• Fiorella Falconi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2457-2807 10 ,
• Joel Aguirre   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8368-967X 10 ,
• Alejandro Tapia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7896-1384 10 &
• Freddy Paz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0142-1993 10  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14032))

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• International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

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The heuristic evaluation belongs to the usability inspection methods and is considered one of the most popular methods since it allows the discovery of over 75% of the total usability problems involving only 3 to 5 usability experts. However, certain problems and challenges have been identified during their execution. One of the identified problems is the lack of validation scenarios that demonstrate the contributions and benefits of incorporating systems that provide support for heuristic evaluation. Although there are case studies that could support the problems described above, the literature has shown that these are quite scarce and, for the most part, are software products that are used as support tools for certain elements to be evaluated, such as, for example, visual clarity of the system, page links validations and readability. For this reason, since there are no validation scenarios that demonstrate the contributions and benefits of the automation of heuristic evaluations through software products, the result is that there is a low level of confidence in usability evaluators to use a system that supports the heuristic evaluation process, for so the inspection continues to be carried out manually. As a part of previous research, a software product was implemented to support the five steps (planning, training, evaluation, discussion, and report) of a previously selected formal process to perform heuristic evaluations. To test the previously developed software product, a case study that demonstrates the contributions and benefits of incorporating the web application developed as a support tool for heuristic evaluation was proposed, and it has been of the utmost importance since it has allowed performing a comparative analysis between the evaluation when is performed by using the selected formal process through a template contained in an MS Excel format document, and by using the web application developed as a result of the aforementioned previous research. The results demonstrated that a higher average result was obtained, for the team that used the implemented system, in all the established criteria. The interpretation of the results can be summarized with the fact that the system obtained a better perception by the team who used it than the results obtained by the team that used the evaluation template.

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Acknowledgments

This work is part of the research project “Virtualización del proceso de evaluación de experiencia de usuario de productos de software para escenarios de no presencialidad” (virtualization of the user experience evaluation process of software products for non-presential scenarios), developed by HCI-DUXAIT research group. HCI-DUXAIT is a research group that belongs to the PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú).

This work was funded by the Dirección de Fomento a la Investigación at the PUCP through grant 2021-C-0023.

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Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Av. Universitaria 1801, San Miguel, Lima 32, Lima, Peru

Adrián Lecaros, Arturo Moquillaza, Fiorella Falconi, Joel Aguirre, Alejandro Tapia & Freddy Paz

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Correspondence to Adrián Lecaros .

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Marcelo M. Soares

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Lecaros, A., Moquillaza, A., Falconi, F., Aguirre, J., Tapia, A., Paz, F. (2023). A Comparison Between Performing a Heuristic Evaluation Based on a Formal Process Using a System and the Traditional Way: A Case Study. In: Marcus, A., Rosenzweig, E., Soares, M.M. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14032. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35702-2_2

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