It's not always a bug… Sometimes it’s just ignored heuristics.

Why ignoring heuristics is expensive — for your product, your brand, and your business.

If your user gets lost, doesn’t know where to click, or just gives up halfway through... the problem isn’t always in the code.
More often than not, the problem is right at the foundation — in what should’ve been thought about before opening Figma or writing a single line of code.
It’s bad UX.

Let’s be clear:
Heuristics are not an afterthought. They’re not a post-design checklist. And they’re definitely not a “nice-to-have.”

Heuristics are the backbone of digital experiences that make sense, flow naturally, and actually work.
Ignoring them isn’t just a design mistake — it’s a product mistake. A business mistake.

The size of the problem (yeah, we’ve got data)

If you think this sounds dramatic, it’s not. Let’s look at the facts:

🔎 97% of Brazilian websites fail in usability and accessibility.
(Source: BigDataCorp + Web Para Todos, 2024)

And no — these aren’t complex errors. They’re not edge cases or deep technical failures.
They are basic mistakes.
The usual suspects?

• Confusing navigation (Users don’t know where they are or how to proceed.)

• Lack of feedback (They click... but did it work? Did it load? Or did it just break?)

• Poor visual hierarchy (Information has no order, no priority, no logic.)

• Broken design patterns (Every page feels like it was designed by someone else — maybe it actually was.)

All of this?
Blatant heuristic violations.

Heuristics aren’t theory. they’re practice.

If you’re new here, heuristics are usability principles developed by Jakob Nielsen (yeah, that Nielsen from Nielsen Norman Group) that guide what good digital experiences look like.

And this isn’t subjective fluff — these are globally validated, objective criteria that have been saving users (and businesses) for decades.

And guess what?
The most common UX issues we see out there are directly tied to breaking these principles.

Reports that back this up:

• BigDataCorp + Web Para Todos (2024): 97% of Brazilian websites fail at the basics.

• NN/g (2023): The most common UX issues globally stem from heuristic failures like lack of feedback, broken consistency, and poor user control.

• Baymard Institute (2023): 82% of UX issues in e-commerce are directly related to heuristic failures, including broken navigation, no feedback in cart flows, and inconsistent checkout processes.

The real cost of ignoring heuristics

When you skip heuristics, the bill comes due. And it’s expensive.
Here’s what happens:

• You lose conversions.

• You lose customers.

• You damage your brand reputation.

• And ultimately… you lose money.

And no — UX is not just pretty screens. (Screens are UI, by the way. Just saying.)
UX is flow. UX is structure. UX is building experiences that make sense for both users and the business.
It’s about not making your users want to throw their computer out the window.

Let’s Reflect:

What’s the one heuristic violation you see the most out there — the one that drives you absolutely crazy?