Jakob Nielsen is the hypocritical guru of usability. Go to his site (useit.com) and you’ll see a list of blue underlined links that relate to his usability genius. His bud Donald Newman created the “desktop” metaphor and continues to emphasize user-centered design, but this website still looks like the 90s. (Good content, though.)

Let me summarize his list of web heuristics—or to put it in user-friendly term: rules of thumb

1)      Visibility of system status—check out the status bars. It’s nice to be able to see what your system is up to, mostly the important trait “working” or “not working” and maybe a brief reason why it’s not working or what percentage it’s working, that kind of thing.

2)       There will be some stuff that is trending and may seem like an industry standard, but it’s not, but often there’s a reason why things are, so don’t ignore what works.

3)      Speak the user’s language, and use the user’s logic. This might get tricky for words like “submit” which may seem cold and system-y language, but users have adopted it and appreciate the expectations that the little word connotes.

4)      User control and user freedom. Is there a way give the user more control, a better navigation bar? An exit, an undo button? See to it!

5)       Consistency and Standards. Your site is a new world, a new system with new signs telling us where to go. If you’re going to implement a visual system to communicate, keep it consistent, otherwise how else can you establish your language? Your identity?

6)      Error—make room for it, avoid it and fix it. Do this using coherent error messages, undo buttons and confirmation boxes. Test your stuff and if it messes up, redesign!

7)      Recognition rather than recall. There’s a reason why we have the concept of desktop for PCs. It’s because we recognize how it works and we don’t have to remember specifically that the trash can is a place to put things we don’t want. This is something we already know due to many experiences repeated in different contexts. Make your solution obvious. Use concepts that people are familiar with as a jumping point to get them to do what you want them to.

8)      Allow users to tailor frequent actions. Doing things on the web, isn’t always fun. It is a chore and we can streamline the process to make it short and efficient. People will use your application for different things. Segment. Let it be chopped up so users can use it for the one (or few things) that relates to their lives.

9)      Speaking of bells and whistles: Aesthetic and minimalist design. Be efficient with information. Let it speak using hierarchy, relative visibility. More relevant= more visible.

I think it’s helpful for everyone to translate this list into terms that they can understand (because these “use it” guys may have gotten a little carried away with the multi-syllable words) and who needs that in this day and age where letters do most of our talking? OMG.