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HeuristicExpert heuristicIntermediate

Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

Accelerators that experts use and novices ignore let one interface serve both populations.

Definition

Nielsen's seventh heuristic. Shortcuts, unseen by the novice user, may speed up interaction for the expert such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allowing users to tailor frequent actions is part of the same idea.

Expert heuristic. A review criterion developed by practitioners. Useful and widely taught, but evaluated by judgement rather than measurement.

On this page
  1. Definition
  2. Layering rather than branching
  3. Accelerators worth building
  4. In practice
  5. Sources
  6. Continue from here

Layering rather than branching

The important word is 'unseen'. An accelerator that clutters the novice path is not an accelerator, it is a second interface. Keyboard shortcuts, gestures and bulk operations work because they sit alongside the discoverable path rather than replacing it.

Two full interfaces, a simple mode and an advanced mode, is usually a failure of this heuristic rather than an application of it. It doubles maintenance and strands users at the boundary between them.

Accelerators worth building

  • Keyboard shortcuts for the ten most frequent actions, discoverable in a shortcut sheet and in menus.
  • A command palette that also teaches the shortcut for what was just run.
  • Bulk selection and bulk actions in any list where users act on multiple items.
  • Saved views, saved filters and saved searches.
  • Templates and duplication for repeated creation.
  • Recents and pinning for frequently visited objects.

In practice

Teaching shortcuts through the palette

Professional tools

Showing the keyboard equivalent next to each palette result converts the palette into a teaching surface. Users graduate from search to shortcut on their own schedule.

Saved views in enterprise tables

Enterprise software

Users who rebuild the same filter set daily are doing work the product could hold. A saved view removes a repeated cost that never appears in single-session usability testing.

Sources

Where a source establishes something narrower than the popular reading of it, the note says so.

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Applies when you are designing

An Enterprise Workflow

Why this works

The reasoning this entry rests on.

Applied through

Where this shows up as a concrete interface decision.

Often used with

These usually appear in the same screen or the same decision.

Practical example

A worked decision where this was the deciding factor.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.