Usability Mnemonic: Map and Fetch

I read this and felt like the sum-up of each of Nielsen's heuristics into a single word was useful for memorization. I wrote down the first letters and jumbled them around a bunch until I found something that could be construed into a memorable phrase:

MMP RN FEDCH, 'map and fetch' - from this, I can remember:

memory
metaphor
prevention

recovery
navigation

feedback
efficiency
design
consistency
help

Just by going over this list a few times, I can keep these words in memory as the correct way to fill out the "map and fetch" letter list. Next up is keeping good associations with the words:

memory

don't make the user remember things; keep data visible

metaphor

bring real life metaphors and interactions into your designs

prevention

even better than good error messages is to keep errors from occuring. Prevent them.

recovery

Show a clear path to recovery; no codes, just step-oriented, precise information

navigation

The user should always be able to see how to get places; including an escape hatch

feedback

system status should always be visible

efficiency

put in just enough ui to use; make it flexible. Experts get accelerators, novices get ui

design

minimalist aesthetic - needless words compete with useful words for attention

consistency

keep your metaphors the same everywhere; don't make similar things act differently

help

searchable, step oriented, easy to find, easy to use, precise, detailed, available

I just wrote out paraphrases of nielsen's rules beside them - and in order to keep myself thinking about it a bit, I wrote this quick blogpost. Hopefully it's useful to someone else, too!