A printable HTML document providing comprehensive reading material on heuristic evaluation, including its definition, Nielsen's ten heuristics, and the evaluation process; used by learners as a self-contained reference for studying the full module content.
Topics
This module covers 7 topics. Open a topic to see its subtopics.
Module Content
27 items.
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This activity presents a scenario involving a banking app login screen with three specific usability problems and asks learners to identify which of Nielsen's 10 heuristics are violated, helping them practice applying the principles to real-world interface issues.
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The consolidated module reading that walks through heuristic evaluation end to end, beginning with its definition as a structured inspection technique and continuing through all the module's topic sections in one place.
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A lesson introducing heuristic evaluation as a usability inspection method, explaining what evaluators do, where the method came from, and how it compares in cost and value to other evaluation approaches.
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A lesson presenting Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics, their 1990 origin with Rolf Molich and 1994 refinement, and how this framework differs from usability testing with real participants; used as the reference list when inspecting interfaces.
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A lesson detailing the procedural steps of a rigorous heuristic evaluation — including independent passes, evaluator briefing, and documentation — and contrasting a valid evaluation with an informal 'look for problems' review.
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A lesson on assigning severity ratings to usability findings, explaining the rating scale and criteria that let teams distinguish catastrophic barriers from cosmetic issues and prioritize limited development effort.
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A lesson on merging independent evaluators' problem lists into a single consolidated set, covering why no single evaluator finds every problem and how to identify duplicates and combine severity judgments.
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A lesson on writing the formal heuristic evaluation report as a professional deliverable, covering structure, evidence, and tone needed to communicate findings credibly to managers, developers, and other absent stakeholders.
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A culminating assignment brief in which learners independently apply the full heuristic evaluation process to three peer-created prototypes and produce findings, moving beyond guided practice examples with known issues.
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This reading introduces heuristic evaluation as a structured usability inspection technique, explaining what it is, why it is widely used, and how evaluators assess a user interface against recognized usability principles — serving as a conceptual foundation before learners engage with the method hands-on.
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This reading presents all ten of Nielsen and Molich's usability heuristics, explaining each principle and its application to interaction design so that learners can use them as a reference framework when conducting their own heuristic evaluations.
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This reading walks through the step-by-step process for conducting a rigorous heuristic evaluation, distinguishing a valid structured inspection from an informal review and guiding both learners and instructors on correct methodology.
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This reading explains how to assign severity ratings to identified usability problems, covering the criteria that separate critical barriers from minor cosmetic issues so that learners can prioritize findings and help development teams allocate resources effectively.
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This reading covers how to consolidate usability findings from multiple independent evaluators into a single unified list, explaining why no single evaluator catches every problem and how to merge, deduplicate, and reconcile separate reports.
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This reading describes how to structure and write a formal heuristic evaluation report — including the components, language, and level of detail needed to communicate findings credibly to stakeholders such as project managers who were not present during the evaluation.
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This reading introduces a peer-evaluation assignment in which learners independently apply the full heuristic evaluation process to three prototypes created by classmates, moving beyond controlled practice examples to real, unvetted interface designs.
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This reading introduces a peer-evaluation assignment in which learners independently apply the full heuristic evaluation process to three prototypes created by classmates, moving beyond controlled practice examples to real, unvetted interface designs.
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A printable HTML overview document summarising all module topics at a high level with brief introductions and key points for each; used by learners seeking a concise orientation to the module or by instructors as a topic survey handout.
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A foundational reading that defines heuristic evaluation as a usability inspection method, traces its origins to Nielsen and Molich, and explains why evaluators inspect interfaces against recognized principles instead of testing with end users — read first to establish the vocabulary for the rest of the module.
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A reference-style lesson walking through each of Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics in turn, explaining how these broad rules of thumb apply across websites, mobile apps, desktop software, and physical devices; learners use it as the core checklist for all evaluation work.
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A procedural guide to actually running a heuristic evaluation as a discount usability method, covering how multiple evaluators inspect independently and how their separate findings are pooled into a single problem list — used to plan and execute an evaluation session.
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A lesson on assigning severity ratings to identified heuristic violations, explaining the rating scale and how prioritization turns a flat list of problems into an actionable fix order for development teams with limited time.
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A topic explaining why heuristic evaluation uses several independent evaluators and how to merge their overlapping and unique findings into one clean, de-duplicated master list of usability problems.
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A writing guide for producing formal heuristic evaluation reports, covering the executive summary, documented violations tied to Nielsen's principles, severity ratings, and recommendations so the findings are actionable for designers, product managers, or clients.
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An applied topic that frames the module assignment, instructing learners to independently evaluate three classmate prototypes by inspecting each interface, identifying problems, mapping them to Nielsen's 10 heuristics, and assigning severity ratings.
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A consolidated single-page compilation of all module topics — from the introduction to heuristic evaluation through the ten heuristics, process, severity ratings, aggregation, reporting, and peer evaluation — useful for review or printing as a complete module reference.