Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles - UX Design

Today we will talk about the user experience through Jakob Nielsen’s 10 general principles. Jakob Nielsen is a Danish web usability consultant who has a PhD in Human computer interaction from the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen. He created general rules that are called “heuristics” to help with the UX Design (user experience design). Let’s have a look at them:

1.    Visibility of system status 

"The design should always keep users informed on what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time". 

This means that how a device / an experience is designed has to give useful information to the users and give them real-time feedback. 

For instance, you are designing the conversion funnel of your online store. Consumers are used to buy online, so when they choose a product, they expect a certain user experience from the moment they choose to the moment they pay and even after with the delivery. Many consumers abandoned their shopping cart because they don’t have the right information and they feel confused or lost. The act of purchasing is the final act, you need to provide your target continuous information regarding the following steps:

• Saving a product

• Shopping cart

• Customer information

• Overview of your items

• Shipping

• Payment

• Validation

 

2.    Match between system and the real world 

"The design should speak the users' language. Use words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than internal jargon. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order". 

You need to know your users and adapt your design to them by adapting to their way of talking and understanding things. 

 

For example, you are designing a new type of coffee machine and your target is the students (18-23 years old). They need to understand quickly how the machine works through images and not complicated explanations with a lot of words. By using their codes (nice possibly funny images), they will be more likely to buy your brand.

 

3.    User control and freedom

"Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process".

This means that your users will need to be able to leave / stop what they are doing quickly and easily. Indeed, we don’t want them to feel stuck and have to go through a long process to, for example, stop their subscription to a website. 

 

 

4.    Consistency and standards

"Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions". 

Indeed, users won’t only use your platform/service/product, ... they will also use other ones and they will have expectations regarding those designs so yours need to match with these expectations.

 

For example, when you look at a blog, you expect to understand quickly what it is about, finding nice images, having a good reading experience, … So, if tomorrow you decide to create a blog, you will have to design it so that it will match the users’ expectations.

 

5.    Error prevention

"Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems 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". 

You need to prevent a bad user experience by anticipating the mistakes and slips that they might make. Having an understandable error message that can be fixed easily will help the users in their experience. 

 

For example, you are subscribing to a new service online and you make a mistake with your address. It is important for you to be able to go back to the contact page easily and change it to the right one. 

 

6.    Recognition rather than recall

"Minimize the user's memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design (e.g. field labels or menu items) should be visible or easily retrievable when needed". 

We have limited short-term memories and when we have an experience related to a product or service, the design of this offer needs to make it easy for us to navigate/use it and so, without having to remember how to use it, ... 

 

For example, if we take Instagram, (PS: you can follow us under the name @duchies), we did not learn how to use it, it was instinctive enough and the app also gave us nice tutorials to watch to understand it. We did not have to remember anything. 

 

7.    Flexibility and efficiency of use

"Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions". 

This point is about offering different possibilities to the users in order to personalize their experiences. 

 

For example, when you subscribe to a blog / a journal, sometimes you can choose how often you want to receive newsletters with the articles. It allows the service to be adapted to the user, if you love actualities you might ask for a daily update and if you just want to keep yourself informed on what is going on, a once-a-week newsletter would be enough for you. 

 

8.    Aesthetic and minimalist design

"Interfaces should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility".  

As we said in our previous article about SEO, content is important, and how you design your offer needs to be efficient. You need to focus on the essentials to keep the attention of your users. 

 

For example, a website/blog with a lot of images that do not give you any additional relevant information will just confuse your users and you could lose them.

 

9.    Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

"Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no error codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution". 

When something goes wrong, how the error is explained to the users is important so that they can know how to fix it quickly. 

 

For example, if you click on a website page and it does not work, you might want to understand the problem easily (images, understandable text, …). The website can also offer you another solution like a “go back” or “change page” button. 

 

10. Help and documentation

"It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks".  

You need to provide easy help to your users when needed. The help section needs to be well-made so that you can quickly find the answer you need.

 

For example, you just bought a jean online, but it is not the right size, and you need to know how you can return it. The website can send you a confirmation of delivery with a document where it is written how to proceed if you want to return your jean. This is a good user experience because the website gives you the information you need at the right time. 

 

 

Those 10 principles help us, as marketers, to create a useful offer and an intuitive user experience that meets the users’ expectations and that can answer their needs. Everything is about user experience nowadays, it is important to understand and know them to deliver the best device possible. 

Anaïs Meuret

#jakobnielsen #usability #10principales #visibility #adaptation #content #efficiency #design 

 

Article based on Jakob Nielsen, 1994, 10 usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, NielsenNormanGroup.com, 14/02/2021