Heuristic Evaluation — H4: Consistency and Standards
The fourth heuristic given by Nielsen is consistency and standards. This heuristic states that Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions. This heuristic ensures that the system you are designing is predictable and is easy to learn for your users. The consistency that we are discussing in this heuristic can be at various levels. For example consistency within an application or group of applications, consistency with respect to the industry, platform-specific consistency like while designing for iOS, Android, etc.. So to make a product easy and intuitive to use, make sure that it is consistent at all these levels.
1. Consistency within the application or group of applications
Let’s start our discussion with Consistency within an application or group of applications. Microsoft Office suite is one of the apt examples to understand this level of consistency. There are a number of applications in Microsoft Office Suite like Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, etc. All of these applications follow a consistent layout, which in turn, makes them intuitive and easy to use.
For instance, if a user has been exposed to Microsoft Powerpoint and he is going to use Microsoft Excel for the first time, the consistency between these 2 applications makes it easier for him to understand the new application. The user can leverage his past experience with PowerPoint to easily understand the layout of excel. Thus reducing his learnability curve and giving him a sense of comfort. This was an example of how consistency within a group of applications can make life easier for your users.
Now let’s proceed further and look at the importance of consistency within a single application through the help of an example.
In this application snapshot, the inline editable fields in the data table are represented by purple-colored text. This means that when a user clicks on a purple-colored text in the table, it gets converted to an editable field. In this table, each row represents a summary of a larger data set. In other words, each row when expanded leads to a dedicated information page.
To navigate to the expanded view a user needs to click on the 3 dots icon, which in turn, presents him with the available options. Once the user clicks on the edit/view link, the system navigates to the dedicated information page. So this is how the system works. While using this application, quite naturally, the user will start assuming that purple colored text in a table means inline edit.
But imagine what will happen if in one of the data tables within the same application, the purple-colored text is used as a link to navigate to the dedicated information page corresponding to that row.
How do you think it will affect the experience of the user? The user will get confused. While using any system, a user forms a mental model of the same. This mental model is nothing but a blueprint of how the system works after the user experiences it. In this case, the user won’t be able to form a clear mental model of the system. While using this application, he will expect that clicking on the purple colored text within a table will make it editable but if the system behaves differently and navigates him to a different page, his mind will always be in a confused state. He will always have to guess if the purple-colored text in a table means inline edit or navigation link. Therefore for a user to form a clear mental model of the system, maintaining consistency within a single application is of utmost importance. This was all about maintaining consistency within an application or a group of applications.
2. Consistency with respect to an industry or a platform
Now let’s move ahead and understand what we mean when we say maintaining consistency with respect to an industry or a platform. In this case, maintaining consistency simply means implementing standard UI conventions followed throughout the industry or platform. Generally, when users interact with a new system, they use their past experience to decode it. So if you follow the standard UI conventions it becomes easier for your users to use your system. Simply put, it increases the usability of your system. For example, simple things like putting your logo on the left-hand side and making it clickable to redirect the user to your landing or homepage, providing a sign in button on the right-hand side corner of your site can make your system familiar to your users. Additionally, this makes the learning curve of your platform much smaller for your users.
Therefore while designing for a particular platform it becomes very crucial to consider its guidelines. For example iOS Human Interface Guidelines, Material Design Guidelines, etc.. Using these standard conventions will help you to make your product more predictable and learnable.
Jakob’s Law of the web user experience states that users spend most of their time on sites other than yours. This in turn means that users expect your site to work the same way as all other sites they have used or interacted with. If in case, your site breaks a standard convention, for instance, if it has a sign out button on the bottom left-hand corner instead of the top right-hand corner, you are forcing the users to learn a new thing. And adding a new pattern to the standard convention leads to an increased cognitive load for the users. Therefore try to follow the standard convention unless breaking a standard convention is necessary or it brings about better user experience.
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