Site Analysis Handbook > External Articles > Nielsen Heuristics My List ♥ ()

Approach: Nielsen Heuristics

Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics are widely cited rules of thumb for interface usability — distilled by Nielsen in 1994 from a survey of usability problems and updated since. They are deliberately broad principles rather than specific guidelines, intended to be applied with judgment to whatever interface is in front of you.

Applied to web content as a rubric, the heuristics let you score every page on the same ten dimensions: how clearly the page communicates where the user is, whether its language matches how the audience actually thinks, whether users can recover from mistakes, whether the layout is consistent with the rest of the site, and so on.

Each page gets a score for each heuristic plus an overall score, so you can sort an inventory by usability, find your weakest pages or weakest dimensions, and use that to prioritize rework.

See Nielsen Heuristics fields below. Or show fields for all field types.
H1 Count ♥ ♡
Count of `<h1>` elements on the page.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other Technical fields.
Images Without Alt (count) ♥ ♡
Count of `<img>` elements with missing or empty `alt` attributes.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other Technical fields.
Landmark Count ♥ ♡
Count of HTML5 landmark regions (`nav`, `main`, `header`, `footer`, `aside`) or elements with landmark ARIA roles.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other Technical fields.
Nielsen H1 Visibility ♥ ♡
Does the page keep users informed about where they are and what is going on? Look for breadcrumbs, clear page titles, current-section highlighting in navigation, and timely feedback for user actions.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 1 (H1 Visibility) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 1 (H1 Visibility) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H1 Visibility field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 10 (H10 Help & Docs). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 10 (H10 Help & Docs) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 10 (H10 Help & Docs) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H10 Help & Docs field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 2 (H2 Real-World Match). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 2 (H2 Real-World Match) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 2 (H2 Real-World Match) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H2 Real-World Match field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 3 (H3 User Control). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 3 (H3 User Control) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 3 (H3 User Control) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H3 User Control field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Nielsen H4 Consistency ♥ ♡
Final score for H4 Consistency, blending the LLM score 60% with the structural sub 40% via 3:2 weighting in avg(). The repetition trick bypasses Chimera's strict left-to-right evaluation without explicit decimal multiplication.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 4 (H4 Consistency) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 4 (H4 Consistency) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H4 Consistency field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Intermediate helper that aggregates the three structural-signal pattern counts (images without alt, H1 count, landmark count) into a single 0-3 value, used by the H4 Consistency formula. Exists because Chimera expressions cannot multiply directly through case() returns — pre-materializing this helper as a float column sidesteps that limitation.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Does the page prevent problems from happening in the first place? On pages with forms or user actions, look for clear labels, sensible defaults, required-field marking, and confirmation for destructive actions. Does not apply to purely informational pages.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 5 (H5 Error Prevention) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 5 (H5 Error Prevention) score (0-3 or n/a). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H5 Error Prevention field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Nielsen H6 Recognition ♥ ♡
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 6 (H6 Recognition). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 6 (H6 Recognition) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 6 (H6 Recognition) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H6 Recognition field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Nielsen H7 Flexibility ♥ ♡
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 7 (H7 Flexibility). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 7 (H7 Flexibility) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 7 (H7 Flexibility) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H7 Flexibility field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Nielsen H8 Aesthetic ♥ ♡
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 8 (H8 Aesthetic). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 8 (H8 Aesthetic) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 8 (H8 Aesthetic) score (0-3). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H8 Aesthetic field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Final per-heuristic score for Nielsen Heuristic 9 (H9 Error Recovery). Derived from the LLM score with type coercion (and an n/a-aware path for H5/H9).
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-written rationale for the Nielsen Heuristic 9 (H9 Error Recovery) score.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
LLM-assigned Nielsen Heuristic 9 (H9 Error Recovery) score (0-3 or n/a). Used as input to the calculated Nielsen H9 Error Recovery field.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Nielsen Overall Score ♥ ♡
Average of the 10 Nielsen per-heuristic scores. avg() skips real NULLs, so n/a paths on H5 and H9 (which materialize as NULL on float columns) do not drag the average down.
General Usefulness:
Traditional Ease of Automation:
Compare with other User fields.
Legend