Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics
Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics are the best known. Jakob Nielsen published his 10 usability heuristics in the mid-1990s and since then they have had a major influence on the development of usability for web, app and digital products. To this day, they continue to provide extraordinary value for improving the usability of any digital environment.
Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristics of usability are:
Visibility of system state
The system should keep users informed about what is happening, providing appropriate feedback in a reasonable amount of time. For example, in ecommerce, when a user adds a product to the cart, a notification must be introduced to confirm that the product has been successfully added. At the same time, the number of items in the cart needs to be updated. Conversely, a common usability error is when clicking on a ‘Submit’ button on a form does not show confirmation that it has been submitted, nor does it inform the user of what will happen next. This leaves the user unsure whether the action has been completed.
Correspondence between the system and the real world
The system should speak the language of the users, using words, phrases and concepts familiar to them. No jargon, no abbreviations, no three-letter acronyms that can mean anything. In addition, the information should appear in a natural and logical order. An example of good usability is when in a calendar application, events are displayed as blocks of time in a view that resembles a calendar or paper diary. This makes it easier to understand times and dates. Another example is when we shop in an online supermarket, and the sections we find on the website are organised in a similar way to what happens in the physical shop. For this heuristics, perhaps the most frequent usability error is the use of complicated or incomprehensible jargon for the average user. Imagine a website for renting cars by the hour whose call-to-action buttons were ‘book your carsharing service’. A bit more complicated than necessary, isn’t it? ‘Book your car’ would be more understandable to anyone.
User control and freedom
Users often make mistakes and go ‘where they don’t belong’ and need an ‘emergency exit’. This exit needs to be clearly marked so that they can leave quickly without wasting time and above all without creating frustration or insecurity. In most online platforms with good usability, the user can use undo commands, such as Ctrl+Z or Command Z on Mac, allowing errors to be corrected without complications. Imagine a photo editing application that did not allow users to undo changes and forced them to start from scratch if they made a mistake. A catastrophe! A clearly visible undo button must be placed on the screen.
Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder if different words, buttons or design elements mean the same thing. A website should follow the same web page conventions and all the general web page conventions to which users are already accustomed. For example, most websites use standard icons, such as a magnifying glass for search and a house for the home page. We all know what they mean, so there is no need to hesitate to opt for them. A common mistake is to have design inconsistencies between pages of the same website. Users browsing a website become familiar with it and look for what they want to find in the same places, so the more consistent the design of pages, the better. When, for example, different styles of buttons are used in different sections, users can become confused.
Error prevention
Careful design should prevent errors from occurring that could derail the success of the user’s mission. And when users make mistakes, which they do, the system should provide error messages to help them return to a correct situation. For example, online forms should validate the format of the email address in real time and notify the user if there is an error. This avoids sending the form with incorrect information and then not receiving the expected response by email. The same applies to credit card details when making a payment.
