Patterns are what you discover Principles are what you’re supposed to do Heuristic are strategies to progress in solving a problem, without guarantees


Patterns are descriptive “sometimes mis-used as prescriptive, overusing, eg. when new in the field” goal: communicate about solutions not: use this everywhere, asap (prescriptive)


Principles & Best Practices are prescriptive applied almost blindly best practice guarantee “if you always apply the best practice, you always get the best result”


Heuristics are …? cheap: easy to apply

fast & frugal: easy to apply & helps you solve it very quickly

  • example Heuristic: when you are in the jungle and you hear rustling bushes, you run

no guarantee that there is a problem

example Heuristic: something is a heuristic if it starts with: favour / avoid / try / … language:

  • “favour”
  • avoid
  • try
  • look at it from that angle

(src: Video: Design Heuristics - Mathias Verraes - KanDDDinsky 2018)