What is Heuristics Evaluation? – Explained in simple terms

Many of you have asked me to explain about Heuristics Evaluation on the Aspira YouTube channel. This article is for you. 

Non Technical Explanation

Let me explain this technical term using a non-technical language. 

Heuristics Evaluation is practiced in all the industries. For example, in a restaurant you can find a person who is responsible for tasting the food and giving feedback. The ingredients will be adjusted accordingly. This role is called a ‘Food Taster’. This practice is followed by small eateries to the biggest restaurants. In the airline industry, there are people who evaluate the performance of pilots before they get their license. They give feedback to the airlines regarding the pilot’s skills.

In the software development world, we also use heuristics evaluation. We call it ‘Code Review’ or ‘Code Quality Assurance’. Code review is a process where developers look at each other’s code and provide feedback. These feedbacks help them improve their coding skills.  

The same practice is used in the UX / UI design world, too. It’s basically an evaluation by a subject matter expert. It could have been simply called an ‘opinion or feedback by a subject matter expert’, but we call it ‘heuristics evaluation’. 

Heuristics, in this case, refers to the thumb rules in design. Evaluation means ‘measuring’. The usability of the user interface design is measured in the Heurisitics Evaluation process. 

How it’s works

The heuristics evaluation team evaluates the user interface design of an app, product or website against design thumb rules. They present their findings in a report. 

The design team then enhances the product using this feedback. 

You can see that heuristics evaluation plays an important role in the product design stage. 

Take a quick look at the history

Jakob Nielson and Rolf Molich were pioneers in the web usability industry. In 1990, they published an article titled ‘Improving a Human-Computer Dialogue’. In it, they included a section on heuristics, where they explained a set of thumb rules for design. Design leaders in various companies started implementing the heuristics evaluation method in their projects. This made the process popular. 

Nielson’s website has published 10 design thumb rules. I suggest you give it a read, it’s quite valuable in building usable products, apps and services.

I hope I have succeeded in explaining the complex sounding ‘heuristics evaluation’ in simple terms. Please share your feedback in the comments section. 

What is Heuristics Evaluation? – Explained in simple terms