In 1994, Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group wrote 10 general principles for interaction design. These principles are called “heuristics” because they are broad rules. They are not specific usability guidelines.

  1. Visibility of System Status
  2. Match Between the System and the Real World
  3. User Control and Freedom
  4. Consistency and Standards
  5. Error Prevention
  6. Recognition Rather than Recall
  7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
  8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
  9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors
  10. Help and Documentation

They apply today as much as they need back then, whether it’s to static .html pages or Salesforce. This is because they are rooted in the interaction between humans and computers, and our psychological conditioning.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll review each one of these heuristics and show how you can apply them to Salesforce. If you want to get a head start and review the heuristics in advance, checkout https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

The takeaway
As humans, we have certain expectations of how things work in the world. When designing the virtual world, we can take advantage of these biases to build better systems.

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