Usability Heuristics
- 10 Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen - These are 10 general principles for user interface design.
- They are called "heuristics" because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines.
- Visibility of system status
- The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
- Match between system and the real world
- The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
- Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order
- User control and freedom
- Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue.
- Support undo and redo.
- Consistency and standards
- Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing.
- Follow platform conventions.
- Error prevention
- Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
- Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
- Recognition rather than recall
- Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible.
- The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another.
- Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
- Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
- Aesthetic and minimalist design
- Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed.
- Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
- Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
- Help and documentation
- Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation.
- Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.