Heuristics Reviews

What is it?

Heuristics are just rules of thumb – established guidelines against
which a site or application can be evaluated quickly. A heuristic
review is therefore a quick analysis of potential problem areas,
resulting in high-level recommendations for ways to improve the
site or service.

(Note that a heuristic review isn’t a replacement for full-scale user
interface design. The UI works best when it is based on a
cohesive design that has been fully thought-out, reviewed, and
tested.

Who uses it?

Product Owners can use a heuristic review to identify quick, high
impact improvements to a product (low hanging fruit!).
Business Stakeholders can use a heuristic review to scope and
justify larger, more resource-intensive efforts (e.g., fill out a WID).
For Developers, heuristic reviews can function as interaction
design patterns – or guidelines that can be reused from project-toproject
as UI best practices.

How It Works

Start whenever! It helps if there has been some discussion
about a need for improvements, but a heuristic review can
usually uncover unexpected improvements in any product.
A UI designer will spend a few hours working with the
site, reviewing workflow, page structure, control
interactions, and navigation, naming, and visual
consistency.
The resulting document will record deviations from
recognized standards and explain how a standard can be
correctly applied. It will include areas to focus on for quick
fixes, as well as recommendations for future improvements.