Nielsen Usability Heuristics Assessment

A Python script that visits a URL and assesses the website against Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics. Uses cloudscraper to bypass Cloudflare anti-bot protection, making it suitable for sites protected by Cloudflare.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• cloudscraper
• beautifulsoup4

Installation

pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

python assess_usability.py https://example.com

Options

Option	Description	Default
url	URL to assess (required)	—
--timeout	Request timeout in seconds	30
--max-links, -n	Maximum number of linked pages to follow and assess	0 (initial page only)
--all-domains	Follow links to other domains; default is same-domain only	same-domain only

Examples

Custom timeout:

python assess_usability.py https://example.com --timeout 60

Assess the initial page plus up to 5 linked pages (same domain):

python assess_usability.py https://example.com --max-links 5

Assess up to 10 links including external domains:

python assess_usability.py https://example.com -n 10 --all-domains

Output

The script prints a report to stdout:

• Summary: Count of Pass / Warn / Fail across all 10 heuristics
• Per heuristic: Name, status, findings, and suggestions

Important Note

This is an automated, pattern-based assessment. Heuristic evaluation is traditionally a human-driven activity. Some heuristics (e.g., "Match Between System and Real World") require semantic judgment that cannot be fully automated. The script provides useful automated checks that correlate with each heuristic, serving as a starting point for human review.