The relevance of Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design to User experience across device platforms

Firstly, the Heuristic Evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues.

10 Usability Heuristic for User Interface Design are:

1. Visibility of system Status: Keep users informed about its status appropriately and promptly.
2. Match between system and real world: Show information in ways users understand from how the real world operates.
3. User control and freedom: Offer users control and let them undo errors easily.
4. Consistency and standards: Be consistent so users aren’t confused over what different words or icons mean.
5. Error Prevention: A system should either avoid conditions where errors arise or warn users before they take risky actions.
6. Recognition rather than recall: Reduce the information that users have to remember.
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Keep the content and visual design of UI focus on the essentials.
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors.
10. Help and Documentation: List concise steps to be carried out, searchable documentation for overcoming problems.

How to Conduct Heuristic Evaluation

1. Know what you will test and how
2. Understand your users
3. Conduct the heuristic walk-through
4. Collect results
5. Analyse the results
6. Brief the evaluators.