Nielsen's ten usability heuristics as an interactive scoring tool. Rate each heuristic on a 0-4 severity scale, capture findings, export the completed evaluation as markdown. No signup, no email capture, works entirely in the browser.
Two passes. On the first pass, walk the product's primary flow with each heuristic in mind — score by gut feeling, capture the failure patterns you notice. On the second pass, revisit each score and validate it against the specific evidence you captured. Scores that survive the second pass are the ones that carry into the final report.
Severity is a 0-4 scale calibrated on Nielsen's original rubric. 0 — not a usability problem. 1 — cosmetic; fix if time. 2 — minor; users work around it. 3 — major; must fix before next release. 4 — catastrophe; users cannot complete the task. Most audits severity-inflate; score honestly and the report becomes more useful.
Three to five evaluators is the empirical sweet spot. A single evaluator catches roughly 35% of usability issues in the average product; three catch around 60%; five catch around 75%. If you're auditing alone, score conservatively — your blind spots are larger than you think.
This template pairs with the deeper heuristic evaluation guide (framework explained in operational detail), the 60-point UX audit checklist (broader scope than the ten heuristics alone), the audit report templates (the shippable format your heuristic findings feed into), and the accessibility audit checklist (WCAG-scoped adjacent tool for the accessibility layer).