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Should Nielsen’s Heuristics be applied in UX/UI Design in 2024?
Interface design possesses a set of iconic tools for evaluating its proposals. Nielsen’s heuristics are, without a doubt, one of the most well-known tools. However, their use should respond to the project’s needs to which they will be applied. This opinion piece will present recommendations for using Nielsen and Molich’s heuristics in designing a graphical user interface.
“To a hammer, everything is a nail”
- Law of the Instrument
What are Nielsen’s Heuristics?
Nielsen’s heuristics are a tool for quick checks of basic usability principles in a user interface. These principles were proposed in 1990 by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich in the text Heuristic Evaluation of User Interfaces and cover ten essential premises for better usability of an interface.
- Visibility of system status: The system should inform the user of ongoing transactions and processes.
- Match between the system and the real world: The language and interactions are metaphorical representations of the real world.
- User control and freedom: The user can decide the actions the system will execute and has enough information to understand what will happen upon executing said action.
- Consistency and standards: The components adhere to the recommended rules for their use.
- Error prevention: There is relevant feedback to prevent user errors.
