What are Nielsen's usability heuristics, and how do you use them in your work?
What the interviewer wants to hear
- Ten general principles for interface design
- Examples: system status, match real world, user control, consistency, error prevention
- Used for quick expert reviews and design critique
- Prioritise issues by severity
- Complement, not replace, user testing
Model answer
Nielsen's ten heuristics are broad rules of thumb for usable interfaces. Examples are visibility of system status, matching the real world in language, user control and freedom like undo, consistency and standards, error prevention, and recognition rather than recall. I use them in two ways. While designing, they are a checklist: does every action give feedback, can users go back, are we using familiar words? I also run quick heuristic evaluations on existing products, ideally with two or three colleagues, noting each issue, the heuristic it breaks and a severity rating, so the team can fix the most serious ones first. They are quick and cheap, but they are expert judgement, so I still test with real users to confirm which problems actually trip people up.
Can you answer it under time pressure?
Take a timed easy round and get scored on every answer.
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