design-ux — usability audit (heuristic evaluation)
Usability ≠ aesthetics. design-system/design-spatial make it look right; this checks whether a first-timer can do the task without being told how. Use it whenever a UI "sucks to use," needs a paragraph of instructions, or before shipping anything interactive.
Rule 0 — fresh eyes, on the rendered artifact (inherited from design-spatial §1)
Never self-grade. The builder rationalizes its own UI. Render the live UI in its default first-load state (not a hand-arranged screenshot), capture an interaction trace of the primary task, and have a separate judge (a subagent/VLM that did NOT build it) score it. A described list of changes is not an audit — the audit is a fresh judge hunting for what's wrong on the real screen.
The procedure
- Name the primary task(s) the UI exists for (e.g. "trim a clip and set its speed, then export"). The audit is relative to these, not to abstract prettiness.
- Render default state + trace the task. Screenshot the first-load UI (wide AND narrow — overflow gate from design-spatial §2). Then actually perform the primary task and screenshot each step.
- Score every heuristic (table below) on the artifact: pass / violation, severity (blocker / major / minor), a specifically located finding, and a concrete fix. Separate judge does this.
- Prioritize: blockers → majors → minors; cluster fixes that touch the same surface.
- Fix, then RE-RENDER and RE-SCORE. Do not claim fixed without re-auditing the new artifact (verify-outputs-rule).
Heuristics — score each (Nielsen's 10, 1994) + interaction add-ons
| # | Heuristic (Nielsen) | What to check in THIS UI |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Visibility of system status | Every action has visible feedback; current state/selection/mode always legible; progress for slow ops. |
| 2 | Match the real world | Known metaphors & conventions (e.g. NLE: clips, trim handles, playhead) — not bespoke gestures users must learn. |
| 3 | User control & freedom | Undo/redo, cancel, clear exits from any state; reversible by default. |
| 4 | Consistency & standards | Same thing looks/behaves the same; platform conventions (⌘Z, Delete, drag-to-move) honored. |
| 5 | Error prevention | Invalid states made impossible; destructive actions confirmed or trivially undoable. |
| 6 | Recognition over recall | Options/affordances visible — no memorizing. An instruction wall is a failure of this heuristic: if you must explain scroll-to-zoom / drag-edge / double-click in prose, the affordance is missing. |
| 7 | Flexibility & efficiency | Defaults carry novices; shortcuts/accelerators for experts; sensible first-run with nothing configured. |
| 8 | Aesthetic & minimalist | Signal over chrome; no irrelevant elements competing; the primary surface carries the most visual weight. |
| 9 | Recognize/diagnose/recover from errors | Plain-language errors (not raw stderr), and a path out. |
| 10 | Help & documentation | Rarely needed if 1–9 hold; task-oriented, in-context, not a top-of-page lecture. |
Interaction add-ons (compose, don't restate):
- Don't-make-me-think (Krug): affordances self-evident; the UI teaches itself. Instruction paragraph ⇒ affordance debt (ties to #6).
- Fitts / transit time (design-spatial §3): controls sit near where the task leaves the cursor. A selected object's properties belong adjacent to the object (dock/popover), not in a far panel — every edit shouldn't be a round-trip.
- Discoverability of gestures: any non-obvious gesture (wheel, edge-drag, dbl-click) needs a visible affordance (handle, hover cue, icon) or it doesn't exist for most users.
- Visual-weight match (design-spatial): the surface the user operates (timeline, canvas, editor) should be the visual hero — not a thin strip under a big passive preview.
- Progressive disclosure (design-thinking UX): essentials first; advanced on demand. But disclosure ≠ hiding the primary tool.
- Tooltip timing: delay the first tooltip in a group (~300–700ms hover-intent) so sweeping the cursor over controls doesn't flash tips; once one is open, peers show instantly (no per-tooltip re-delay) while the user scans the row. Fires-on-every-hover is noise; re-delays-on-each-neighbor is sluggish.
- Scroll-position restore: Back/Forward returns the user to where they were, not the top — losing place after a detail→back trip is a silent, repeated tax. Browsers do this by default; the bug is breaking it with manual scroll resets or client routing that forgets.
- Idempotency on submit: mutating actions carry an idempotency key so a double-click, retry, or flaky-network resend can't duplicate the effect (a second charge, a duplicate post). Pairs with "disable submit during the in-flight request + spinner" — the key is the server-side guarantee, the disable is the client-side courtesy.
(Tooltip / scroll-restore / idempotency from the Web Interface Guidelines, vercel-labs/web-interface-guidelines @ 4e799d4, 2026-04-06.)
Output format
A scored table — Heuristic | Finding (located) | Severity | Fix — then a prioritized fix list (blockers first). Severity: blocker = can't complete the task / actively misleading; major = slows or confuses; minor = polish.
Relation to the rest of design
- design-spatial owns the render-then-critique mechanism + Fitts/transit + overflow gate; this skill applies that lens to usability specifically and adds the heuristic scorecard.
- design-thinking owns the UX principles (goals/tasks, IA, feedback, accessibility, progressive disclosure); this skill turns them into a scored audit + fix loop.
- Run a usability audit before declaring an interactive UI "done" — alongside the visual critique, not instead of it.
