algorithm defined

Complete Catalogue of Algorithm Animations

heuristic:

programming A rule of thumb, simplification, or educated guess that reduces or limits the search for solutions in domains that are difficult and poorly understood. Unlike algorithms, heuristics do not guarantee optimal, or even feasible, solutions and are often used with no theoretical guarantee.

Heuristic Search

Heuristic Evaluations:

  Heuristic evaluations involve a small set of evaluators who look at the
  interface and judge it based on basic usability principles. Heuristic
  evaluations allow you to find and fix usability problems throughout the
  iterative design process. If you fix the problems as you go along, you will
  save yourself a lot of work during crunch time when it is much more
  difficult and expensive to change live code.

  As detailed by Jakob Nielsen in Usability Engineering (1994), a heuristic
  evaluation consists of: 

     1.Each evaluator goes through the interface several times, inspects the various dialog elements,
       and then compares them with a list of recognized usability principles. 
     2.The evaluators collaborate to consolidate the output into a list of usability problems in the user
       interface, annotated with references to those usability principles that were violated by the
       design. 
     3.Once each evaluator performs a heuristic evaluation individually, they come together and
       consolidate their findings. 

  In the early stages of development heuristic evaluation can be a very
  effective method for discovering usability problems. 

Heuristic Example