Prompt

This is a list of usability heuristics from different authors.

Please perform a card sorting process by grouping all the heuristics, rules, and principles into a hierarchical categorization of categories. For each category, assign a clear and descriptive title. While grouping, keep track of the original items individually, and when two items from different lists have the same meaning, combine them into a single item but retain a record of the original items they represent.

The list:

## Jakob Nielsen heuristics

1. Visibility of System Status  
   The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
   When users know the current system status, they learn the outcome of their prior interactions and determine next steps. Predictable interactions create trust in the product as well as the brand.
2. Match Between the 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.  
   The way you should design depends very much on your specific users. Terms, concepts, icons, and images that seem perfectly clear to you and your colleagues may be unfamiliar or confusing to your users.  
   When a design’s controls follow real-world conventions and correspond to desired outcomes (called natural mapping), it’s easier for users to learn and remember how the interface works. This helps to build an experience that feels intuitive.
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.  
   When it's easy for people to back out of a process or undo an action, it fosters a sense of freedom and confidence. Exits allow users to remain in control of the system and avoid getting stuck and feeling frustrated.
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.  
   Jakob's Law states that people spend most of their time using digital products other than yours. Users’ experiences with those other products set their expectations. Failing to maintain consistency may increase the users' cognitive load by forcing them to learn something new.
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.  
   There are two types of errors: slips and mistakes. Slips are unconscious errors caused by inattention. Mistakes are conscious errors based on a mismatch between the user’s mental model and the design.
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.  
   Humans have limited short-term memories. Interfaces that promote recognition reduce the amount of cognitive effort required from users.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use  
   Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user so that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.  
   Flexible processes can be carried out in different ways, so that people can pick whichever method works for them.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design  
   Interfaces should not contain information that 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.  
   This heuristic doesn't mean you have to use a flat design — it's about making sure you're keeping the content and visual design focused on the essentials. Ensure that the visual elements of the interface support the user's primary goals.
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.  
   These error messages should also be presented with visual treatments that will help users notice and recognize them.
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.  
   Help and documentation content should be easy to search and focused on the user's task. Keep it concise, and list concrete steps that need to be carried out.

## Gerhardt-Powals (1996) heuristics


1. Automate unwanted workload.  
   Eliminate mental calculations, estimations, comparisons, and any unnecessary thinking, to free cognitive resources for high-level tasks.
2. Reduce uncertainty.  
   Display data in a manner that is clear and obvious to reduce decision time and error.
3. Fuse data.  
   Bring together lower level data into a higher level summation to reduce cognitive load.
4. Present new information with meaningful aids to interpreta- tion.  
   New information should be presented within familiar frame- works (e.g., schemas, metaphors, everyday terms) so that in- formation is easier to absorb.
5. Use names that are conceptually related to function.  
   Display names and labels should be context-dependent, which will improve recall and recognition.
6. Group data in consistently, meaningful ways.  
   Within a screen, data should be logically grouped; across screens, it should be consistently grouped. This will decrease information search time.
7. Limit data driven tasks.  
   Use color and graphics, for example, to reduce the time spent assimilating raw data.
8. Include in the displays only that information needed by the operator at a given time.  
   Exclude extraneous information that is not relevant to current tasks so that the user can focus attention on critical data.
9. Provide multiple coding of data.  
   The system should provide data in varying formats and/or levels of detail in order to promote cognitive flexibility and satisfy user preferences.
10. Practice judicious redundancy.
   Principle 10 was devised by the first two authors to resolve the possible conflict between Principles 6 and 8, that is, in or- der to be consistent, it is sometimes necessary to include more information than may be needed at a given time.

## Ben Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design

1. Strive for Consistency  
   Maintain consistent sequences of actions, terminology, colors, layout, and design elements throughout the interface. Users should be able to predict how the system will behave based on their previous interactions. This reduces learning time and increases user confidence.
2. Enable Frequent Users to Use Shortcuts  
   Provide accelerators, hotkeys, macros, and other shortcuts that allow experienced users to perform tasks more efficiently. This accommodates both novice and expert users without compromising either experience.
3. Offer Informative Feedback  
   Give users clear, immediate feedback about their actions and the system's status. Every user action should generate some form of system response, whether it's highlighting a button, showing progress indicators, or confirming completed actions.
4. Design Dialog to Yield Closure  
   Organize interactions into clear sequences with a beginning, middle, and end. Users should know when they've completed a task successfully, providing a sense of accomplishment and relief from keeping track of incomplete actions.
5. Offer Simple Error Handling  
   Design systems to prevent errors when possible. When errors do occur, provide clear, specific error messages that help users understand what went wrong and how to fix it. Make it easy for users to recover from errors.
6. Permit Easy Reversal of Actions  
   Allow users to undo their actions easily. This reduces anxiety and encourages exploration, as users know they can reverse unwanted changes. Support multiple levels of undo when appropriate.
7. Support Internal Locus of Control  
   Design the interface so users feel they are in control of the system, rather than the system controlling them. Avoid surprising users with unexpected actions, and make the system respond to user initiatives rather than forcing predetermined sequences.
8. **Reduce Short-term Memory Load**  
   Minimize the amount of information users must remember between interactions. Make objects, actions, and options visible. Provide clear labels, use recognition rather than recall, and keep related information grouped together.

## Bastien and Scapin (1993) criteria

1. Guidance  
   1.1 Prompting  
   1.2 Grouping and distinguishing items  
       1.2.1 Grouping by location  
       1.2.2. Grouping by format  
   1.3 Immediate feedback  
   1.4 Legibility  
2. Workload  
   2.1. Brevity  
        2.1.1. Conciseness  
        2.1.2. Minimal actions  
   2.2 Information density  
3. Explicit control  
   3.1. Explicit user actions  
   3.2. User control  
4. Adaptability  
   4.1 Flexibility  
   4.2. Users’experience  
5. Error management  
   5.1. Error protection  
   5.2. Quality of error messages  
   5.3. Error correction  
6. Consistency  
7. Significance of codes  
8. Compatibility  

## Susan Weinschenk and Dean Barker (Weinschenk and Barker 2000) usability guidelines

1. User Control: The interface will allow the user to perceive that they are in control and will allow appropriate control.
2. Human Limitations: The interface will not overload the user's cognitive, visual, auditory, tactile, or motor limits.
3. Modal Integrity: The interface will fit individual tasks within whatever modality is being used: auditory, visual, or motor/kinesthetic.
4. Accommodation: The interface will fit the way each user group works and thinks.
5. Linguistic Clarity: The interface will communicate as efficiently as possible.
6. Aesthetic Integrity: The interface will have an attractive and appropriate design.
7. Simplicity: The interface will present elements simply.
8. Predictability: The interface will behave in a manner such that users can accurately predict what will happen next.
9. Interpretation: The interface will make reasonable guesses about what the user is trying to do.
10. Accuracy: The interface will be free from errors
11. Technical Clarity: The interface will have the highest possible fidelity.
12. Flexibility: The interface will allow the user to adjust the design for custom use.
13. Fulfillment: The interface will provide a satisfying user experience.
14. Cultural Propriety: The interface will match the user's social customs and expectations.
15. Suitable Tempo: The interface will operate at a tempo suitable to the user.
16. Consistency: The interface will be consistent.
17. User Support: The interface will provide additional assistance as needed or requested.
18. Precision: The interface will allow the users to perform a task exactly.
19. Forgiveness: The interface will make actions recoverable.
20. Responsiveness: The interface will inform users about the results of their actions and the interface's status.


## Alan Dix (2009) design principles

* Predictability: Support for the user to determine the effect of future action based on past interaction history 
* Synthesizability: Support for the user to assess the effect of past operations on the current state
* Familiarity: The extent to which a user's knowledge and experience in other real-world or computer- based domains can be applied when interacting with a new system
* Generalizability: Support for the user to extend knowledge of specific interaction within and across applications to other similar situations
* Consistency: Likeness in input-output behavior arising from similar situations or similar task objectives
* Observability: Ability of the user to evaluate the internal state of the system from its perceivable representation
* Recoverability: Ability of the user to take corrective action once an error has been recognized
* Responsiveness: How the user perceives the rate of communication with the system
Task conformance: The degree to which the system services support all of the tasks the user wishes to perform and in the way that the user understands them

Please perform a card sorting process by grouping all the heuristics, rules, and principles into a hierarchical categorization of categories. For each category, assign a clear and descriptive title. While grouping, keep track of the original items individually, and when two items from different lists have the same meaning, combine them into a single item but retain a record of the original items they represent.