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Worldwide (English) Change

Fourteen heuristics used in OCLC heuristic evaluations


Methodology  |  Scales of severity and extent

(Based on Nielsen's 10 Heuristics)

  1. Visibility of system status
    The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Consistency and standards
    Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow uniform and/or platform conventions.
  5. Error prevention
    Even better than good error messages is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
  6. Recognition rather than recall
    Make 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
    Dialogues should not contain information that 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Affordances
    Does the user understand what the text/graphic will do before they activate it?
  12. Use chunking
    Write material so that documents are short and contain exactly one topic. Do not force the user to access multiple documents to complete a single thought.
  13. Provide progressive levels of detail
    Organize information hierarchically, with more general information appearing before more specific detail. Encourage the user to delve as deeply as needed, but to stop whenever sufficient information has been received.
  14. Don't lie to the user
    Eliminate erroneous or misleading links. Do not refer to missing information.