Make your own heuristics
One of the biggest/hardest parts of your heuristic evaluation assignment will be to compile your own list of usability & design principles. Here is an example of heuristics written from a psychology perspective. Read, examine, adopt some or all, use as inspiration.
What do you think about this list of heuristics?
How will you approach making your own list of heuristics?
Let me know in the comments, or at the very least rate or like to indicate you have seen this post.
CGT 512 
As I read through this list, I had several thoughts:
1. Jordi claims that the original heuristics only address technical aspects. I don’t agree with him.
Check Nielsen’s 10 heuristics again, most of them definitely address users’ needs, though Nielsen didn’t write them the way the author did. Some of the author’s heuristics are fallen in Nielsen’s heuristics too.
2. The list Jordi created is a little bit overwhelming for evaluators, in my opinion.
They are more like specific design guidelines but not heuristics for evaluation. For example, the social property of users is not a good point for heuristic evaluation.
I could see some points really great (e.g. design information for scanning, make objects have right affordance), but more of them are falling into too detailed. More over, some of them are kind of repeated.
Overall, I think Nielsen’s list is a better representation for heuristics evaluation. Jordi’s list has some very good points that we could not find in Nielsen’s, but his list needs to be generalized and simplified.
Dr. V. please correct me if I misunderstand it. Thanks!
No, you did not misunderstand. I love your critical look at this list. And this is exactly what it means to build your own list: you need to decide what types of heuristics go on it, and what types of do not belong.
I can tell that the “Psychological Usability Heuristics” really is developed by a psychologist. The heuristics consider almost every area in psychology, visual perception, social psych, memory, and so on.
In my opinion, it is good to have a thorough list like this, but the psychological list here is more like the “reason” or “motivation” for the design. For example, because “people have limitations” the design should require the user to “recognize rather than recall” items. While Nielsen’s list is more like do’s and dont’s, with out specific reasons.
So, in general, Nielsen’s list is more operative for designers; Jordi’s list is more useful when you want to convince the boss.
“Jordi’s list is more useful when you want to convince the boss.” haha, good point, Jing!!
Nielsen’s list of usability heuristics is coined as the “rules of thumb” however, Jordi’s list adopts a couple of very important points written by Susan Weinschenk.
1. People are complicated as are their mental modes. For example, Norman’s interpretation of affordances in his book, The Design of Everyday Things, coins the concept of affordances as “perceived” affordances. Knowing that perceptions vary from person to person and from culture to culture UX design principles should take into account the complexities of ever-growing diversities among users.
2. People are social and use “technology to be social.” Strong and weak network ties create complex networks that can be very influential. What I mean is that UX designs can be synchronous to the complexities of a particular user group’s mental modes.
Nielsen’s 10 general principles are sound user interface design fundamentals that address technical aspects of interfaces. Equally important are UX design principles that address the complexities of people – especially when fostering learning through apps and online educational tools.