Episode 20 – Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics: Part 4

Jon and Chris wrap up this series on usability heuristics. Lots of good information about how to handle error messages and help documentation, and how important user assistance is to good design.

If you missed the previous episodes you can start at episode 1 of this series on Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics.

Today we talk about 9 and 10!

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.

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.

 

Episode 19 – Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics: Part 3

Thank you to our sponsor: Resource Guru – team scheduling simplified. Try it free at resourceguru.io/designreview and use the code designreview3

Also, thanks to the SJSU library for (inadvertently) hosting us!

It’s part 3 of our 5 part series on UX fundamentals laid out by Jakob Nielson: 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

If you missed part 1 & part 2, feel free to catch up after this episode. You won’t need to have heard the first two, but they cover 4 other important UX principles.

Today we will be discussing:

Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making 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.

As always, we want to hear from you so leave your comments below! You can also reach us on Twitter:

Chris: @machinehuman

Jon: @DesignUXUI

So let us know what you think!

 

Enjoying the podcast? Don’t miss part 2 of out study on Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics! Sign up to get notified of new episodes

Episode 16 – Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics: Part 1

This episode, Chris and Jon start a series of shows devoted to everyone’s favorite usability heuristics! If you never heard of these before, or if you heard of them and forgot about them, have a listen and refresh your brain! These principles in interaction design are critical to helping make your product successful. Later in the show, we talk about how different apps utilize these principles and whether or not they did them well.

The principles we are discussing:

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design by Jakob Nielson

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

Google Analytics In Real Life

 

You can find Part 2 right here.

 

The apps are:

Jawbone Up https://appsto.re/us/8LlN2.i

Chris was less enthusiastic about this app as the poor onboarding (as of this post) made it really difficult to figure out what the app does. Needless to say, they didn’t apply Nielsen’s heuristics very well.

Breeze by FitnessKeeper https://appsto.re/us/TuMrX.i

As we were running out of time, Chris didn’t get too much of a chance to talk about this app. But it’s worth looking at simply because the language they use in the app matches the real world really well. The language is informal (not necessarily casual) but effective, and even works in concepts from the last show on playfulness!

MailChimp

 

As always, we want to hear from you so leave your comments below! You can also reach us on Twitter:

Chris: @machinehuman

Jon: @DesignUXUI

So let us know what you think!

 

Jawbone

 

Breeze

 

Enjoying the podcast? Don’t miss part 2 of out study on Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics! Sign up to get notified of new episodes.

 

 

Support our Show!

Subscribe

iTunes Feed

RSS Feed

Sound Cloud