process
Usability heuristic
One of ten product-agnostic rules of thumb (Nielsen, 1994) for judging whether any interface is usable – the standard critique vocabulary.
Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics (first published 1994, still Nielsen Norman Group’s core teaching tool) are the nearest thing usability has to a shared rulebook: visibility of system status, match with the real world, user control and freedom, consistency, error prevention, recognition over recall, flexibility, minimalist design, good error recovery, help.
Their practical power is precision: “this breaks #6 – the user has to remember what they picked on the last screen” is an actionable review note or agent instruction; “this feels clunky” is a vibe. They diagnose; they don’t generate designs.