Individual skill

nielsen-heuristics

Run a formal heuristic evaluation of a design artifact against Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, producing an evidence-backed, severity-scored report with honesty guards. Accepts a screenshot, live URL, codebase/HTML, interface description, or JTBD/spec doc, and adapts its rigor to what is actually observable. Renders as markdown or a Tufte-style HTML report, and can export findings as Linear or Beads tasks after confirmation. Triggers on heuristic evaluation, usability review, Nielsen heuristics check, UX heuristic audit, usability inspection.

humane/skills/nielsen-heuristics/SKILL.md

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Last checked: Nov 5, 2026

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Repository stars (not skill ratings): 41
Repository last updated: Oct 15, 2026
License: MIT

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accessibility Repository topic
agent-skills Repository topic
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claude-code Repository topic
codex Repository topic
design-systems Repository topic
product-design Repository topic
ux-design Repository topic
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SKILL.mdcore · 10,003 bytes
agents/openai.yamlasset · 126 bytes
assets/jakob-nielsen.pngasset · 1,240,543 bytes
references/artifact-guide.mddoc · 4,234 bytes
references/heuristics.mddoc · 7,851 bytes
references/report-template.mddoc · 3,321 bytes
references/task-export.mddoc · 4,242 bytes
references/tufte-preset.mddoc · 2,579 bytes

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# Nielsen Heuristics Validator

> Mascot: `assets/jakob-nielsen.png` — a line-art portrait of Jakob Nielsen. Surface it (embed or attach) when producing a rendered/HTML report or a shareable summary, as the evaluation's signature. It is an output asset, not context to read while evaluating.

**Announce at start:** "I'm using the humane:nielsen-heuristics skill to evaluate this against Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics."

Run a rigorous, evidence-disciplined heuristic evaluation against Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics (Nielsen & Molich 1990, refined 1994). The value over an ad-hoc "critique this UI" prompt is a **consistent rubric plus honesty guards**: sharp per-heuristic probes, a per-finding severity scale, a mandatory evidence-locator requirement, and correct handling of artifacts that have no observable interface.

## Scope guard (read first)

This skill does ONE thing: a formal heuristic inspection. It does NOT run a parallel accessibility (WCAG) audit, performance audit, or general design critique. Flag an accessibility issue **only when it is also a heuristic violation** (e.g., an invisible focus state violates H1: visibility of system status). If the user wants comprehensive multi-dimension auditing, defer to `humane:review`, which orchestrates this skill alongside `layout-rules`, `ux-writing`, `walkthrough`, and `design-tokens` contrast — and marks the domains it cannot cover rather than improvising them. For post-build polish specifically, `impeccable:audit` is the right tool if installed.

## Step 1 — Detect artifact type and select a mode