Recently I wrote about Bastien & Scapin heuristics, it makes me wonder how many heuristics can be used by Ux and product designers.

Among the Ux designers’ toolbox are the heuristics, criteria grids to respect if you want to design a product with a good usability and offering a good user experience.

There is a rather small but significant number of grids, each with its own particularities. Knowing them, or at least knowing that they exist, will allow Ux designers to vary their approaches in designing and evaluating interfaces according to various situations.

What are heuristics ?

“Heuristics” is this kind of word that we use without really knowing the definition, which can be problematic because definitions vary depending on the research field.

Heuristics is “the art of inventing, making discoveries” by solving problems from incomplete knowledge. but in the case of UX design, the sociological definition of the word seems more appropriate:

“The term heuristic refers to a method of solving a problem that does not involve detailed analysis of the problem but rather its membership or adherence to a given class of problems already identified.”

Heuristic grids are therefore sets of criteria aimed at discovering problems and categorizing them in order to better respond to them.

The researchers wanted to identify in an exhaustive way the problems that could be encountered in a digital interface. What is interesting is that each grid was influenced by the vision and history of its creators.

1986 Ben Shneiderman, designing with simplicity

Ben Sheiderman is a mathematician and computer scientist working at the University of Maryland. In 1986, he published a book entitled Designing the User Interface which contains 8 golden rules for interface design.

His work was pioneering in the field and paved the way for other design criteria. His rules apply to most computer systems and are the result of 30 years of observation.

1. Strive for consistency
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
3. Offer informative feedback
4. Design dialog to yield closure
5. Offer simple error handling
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
7. Support internal locus of control
8. Reduce short-term memory load

1993 Bastien and Scapin, maximizing usability

Bastien and Scapin are two Canadian ergonomists from Quebec who worked in the early 90’s on human-computer interaction.

In 1997, they produced a synthesis of about 900 recommendations in the field of ergonomics. This colossal work produced 18 criteria divided into 8 dimensions.

These heuristics are adapted to most computer systems because they focus more on human needs than on technologies.

1. Guidance
2. Workload
3. Explicit controls
4. Adaptability
5. Error management
6. Homogeneity
7. Significance of codes
8. Compatibility

1994 Jackob Nielsen, user experience first

Considered the expert and creator of heuristics by many. Nielsen, co-founder of the Nielsen-Norman group, wrote a list of heuristics for interface design and evaluation in 1990.

This list of heuristics was then reworked four years later by doing a factor analysis of 249 usability problems to identify the heuristics with the most explanatory power to give the heuristics used today by many designers.

Nielsen’s 10 heuristics are oriented to the user experience, which theoretically allows them to be used for the design of services or physical objects as explained in the NNgroup posters.

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

1996 Jill Gerhardt-Powals, computers facing human limits

Computer scientists working at the Stockton University in New Jersey, developed a set of cognitive engineering principles for enhancing human-computer performance.

These heuristics take a more holistic approach to evaluation, meaning that the system must be evaluated as a whole, not as a set of unrelated screens.

This grid differs from the others in being more computer-oriented than user-oriented, with several points that restrict the computer’s functions to give users digestible content

The 10 Gerhardt Powals’ principles are :

1. Automate unwanted workload
2. Reduce uncertainty
3. Fuse data
4. Present new information with meaningful aids to interpretation
5. Use names that are conceptually related to function
6. Group data in consistently meaningful ways
7. Limit data-driven tasks
8. Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time
9. Provide multiple coding of data when appropriate
10. Practice judicious redundancy

2000 Weinschenk and Barke, machine behaviorism

Susan Weinschenk is a behavioral psychologist who worked on human-computer interactions in the 1980s.

The heuristics created are 20 in number.

This heuristic grid is the least well documented, most of the links to sites explaining the origin of the work being dead.
The list might not have been scientifically validated. However, it is still cited and taught by several training organizations.

1. User Control
2. Human Limitations
3. Modal Integrity
4. Accommodation
5. Linguistic Clarity
6. Aesthetic Integrity
7. Simplicity
8. Predictability
9. Interpretation
10. Accuracy
11. Technical Clarity
12. Flexibility
13. Fulfillment
14. Cultural Propriety
15. Suitable Tempo
16. Consistency
17. User Support
18. Precision
19. Forgiveness
20. Responsivenes

2011 Brangier and Nemery, the digital persuasion

Produced by French ergonomists, this grid is very different from others because its objective is not to maximize usability or user experience but to evaluate technological persuasion

Technological persuasion is the set of elements used by technologies to change the behavior of users in the short or long term. We can think in particular of dark patterns, but in general of everything that calls the user to action or the choice of information put forward.

This grid is composed of 23 criteria divided into 8 dimensions.

1. Credibility
2. Privacity
3. Personalization
4. Attractiveness
5. Solicitation
6. Initial support
7. Commitment
8. Takeover

All these heuristic grids help Ux designer to create better product. Theses heuristics have some common points but all have specific value by being oriented to analyse and increase some specific aspect of digital interfaces.

Still, this list is incomplete as lot of similar works must have been done around the world but hasn’t been transalated in English.