Ten rules, one broken flow
A deliberately broken flow — checkout, sign-up, or settings — is laid out element by element. Tag every one you think violates a usability heuristic and name the rule it breaks. Then reveal the expert's violation map and see your precision, recall, and how often you named the right heuristic. Runs entirely in your browser (0 uploads, works offline).
How to use it
- Read each element of the flawed flow. For any you think breaks a rule, pick which of the ten heuristics it violates.
- Leave the genuinely fine elements untagged — flagging them costs precision.
- Hit Submit audit — see the expert's map, your recall (flaws found), precision (flags that were real), and heuristic accuracy.
What this clears up (the fundamentals)
- Expert critique is a checklist, not sharper eyes — the ten usability heuristics (visibility, match, control, consistency, error-prevention, recognition, flexibility, aesthetic, recovery, help) are what a pro runs to completion; instinct skips whole categories.
- Naming the rule turns a feeling into a fix — "this feels off" isn't actionable; "this violates error-prevention because the destructive action sits next to Save" tells you exactly what to change.
- Precision matters too — flagging fine elements as broken wastes a team's time and erodes trust in the review. A good audit finds the real flaws without crying wolf.
- Severity guides order — not every violation is equal; the expert map rates each so you fix the dangerous ones first.
Where it's used
A design-critique and usability-review drill — the fastest way to internalise the heuristics and run them like a checklist on any screen. It's a miatz build-lab concept playable; learn to build it yourself.
FAQ
What are the ten usability heuristics?
Jakob Nielsen's ten: visibility of system status, match between system and the real world, user control and freedom, consistency and standards, error prevention, recognition rather than recall, flexibility and efficiency, aesthetic and minimalist design, help users recover from errors, and help and documentation.
How is my audit scored?
Against an expert-authored map of which elements are truly flawed and which heuristic each breaks. Recall is the share of real flaws you caught; precision is the share of your flags that were real; heuristic accuracy is how often you named the correct rule for a flaw you found.
Why penalise flagging fine elements?
Because a review that flags everything is as useless as one that flags nothing. Precision keeps the audit credible and the team's fixes focused.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The flow, your tags and the scoring all run in your browser — nothing is transmitted or stored. Turn off your Wi-Fi and it still works.
Limits
A teaching model with a fixed expert map and a handful of seeded flows — real critique involves context, user research, and trade-offs the heuristics can't settle alone. Use it to drill the checklist, then bring it to your own screens.
Related
Part of the miatz playgrounds. Explore the rest from the playground catalog.
Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) — it works offline the next time you need it.