❤️ 15/15
Origin and positioning: from a 1990 paper to the 10 rules of thumb fixed in 1994
Heuristic evaluation was proposed by Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich in a 1990 CHI paper: have evaluators inspect an interface against a small set of general usability principles, item by item, and flag every violation.
In 1994, Nielsen ran a factor analysis of 249 real usability problems and refined the principles into the 10 with the greatest explanatory power — today's 'Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics.' NN/g is explicit: these 10 have remained unchanged since 1994.
⚠️Key positioning: they are 'rules of thumb / broad rules,' not concrete design specifications — they point directions, they don't prescribe pixels. They won't tell you how big a button should be or what color to use; they give you a lens for 'where to look and by what standard to find faults.' Treating them as a mandatory spec to copy line by line is using them wrong.
