What Nielsen's 10 Heuristics Were Actually Designed For

The correct answer is "A checklist for expert evaluation of an existing interface."

Nielsen's 10 heuristics were published as heuristics for expert evaluation — a checklist a trained evaluator uses to inspect an interface and predict where real users will struggle, not a from-scratch design methodology. That distinction matters in an interview: if asked "how would you evaluate an existing product's usability without running a study," the correct named method is heuristic evaluation against this list, not a generic "I'd look for problems."

The distractors describe things the heuristics aren't: they're not a methodology for generating a new design from nothing — they evaluate an interface that already exists; they're not a statistical or predictive model producing a time estimate — evaluators apply expert judgment against named categories, not a formula; and they're not a legal or regulatory compliance standard — that role is filled by WCAG, covered in accessibility-and-inclusive-design.