• Excellent review tool for advanced and functioning prototypes


• Fast turn-around time


• Fundamental layout, presentation and interaction problems can be discovered in the design.

• Real users are not involved


• Task flow issues may not be discovered which are fundamental to the web site's usability

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 platform conventions.

5. Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which 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 which 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.

1. Automate unwanted workload

• Free cognitive resources for high-level tasks


• Eliminate mental calculations, estimations, comparisons and unnecessary thinking

2. Reduce uncertainty by displaying data clearly and obviously

3. Reduce cognitive load by combining lower-level data into a higher-level summation

4. Present new information with meaningful aids to interpretation:

• Use a familiar framework, making it easier to absorb


• Use everyday terms, metaphors, etc.

5. Use names that are conceptually related to function

• Make it context-dependent


• Try to improve recall and recognition

6. Group data in consistently meaningful ways to decrease search time

7. Limit data-driven tasks

• Reduce the time spent assimilating raw data


• Make appropriate use of color and graphics

8. Include only the information a user needs at a given time:

• Allow users to remain focused on critical data


• Exclude extraneous information that is not relevant to current tasks

9. Provide multiple coding of data when appropriate

10. Practice judicious redundancy (to resolve the possible conflict between heuristics six and eight)