ux-heuristics

ux-heuristics is a skill for Claude Code from ne11nn/cantos-plugin. It costs 123 tokens per session (4,296 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of heuristics, MIT.

A usability review framework for examining interfaces against established usability principles. It covers issues such as confusing navigation, difficult forms, and unclear page behavior.

In plain words
What is it for?
Running usability audits, heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, and interface improvement reviews.
Why use it?
It gives interface reviews a structured way to find what makes users stop, guess, or get confused.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the cantos plugin — 25 skills, 2 commands, 11 agents, 2 hooks shipped together

Good fit Running usability audits, heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, and interface improvement reviews.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add ne11nn/cantos-plugin --skill ux-heuristics
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ne11nn/cantos-plugin

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cantos, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 25 skills, 2 commands, 11 agents, 2 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ux-heuristics

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for ux-heuristics

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ne11nn/cantos-plugin/ux-heuristics.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 123 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,296 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 97% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00123 $0.04296
Opus 5 $0.00062 $0.02148
Sonnet 5 $0.00025 $0.00859
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00430

Measured 9d ago against content hash 6525e75a54db, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ux-heuristics scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

97% identical to heuristics — 10 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/ux-heuristics/SKILL.md · 302 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 302 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

UX Heuristics Framework

Practical usability principles for evaluating and improving user interfaces. Based on a fundamental truth: users don't read, they scan. They don't make optimal choices, they satisfice. They don't figure out how things work, they muddle through.

Core Principle

"Don't Make Me Think" - Every page should be self-evident. If something requires thinking, it's a usability problem.

The foundation: Users have limited patience and cognitive bandwidth. The best interfaces are invisible -- they let users accomplish goals without ever stopping to wonder "What do I click?" or "Where am I?" Every question mark that pops into a user's head adds to cognitive load and increases the chance they'll leave. Design for scanning, satisficing, and muddling through -- because that's what users actually do.

Scoring

Goal: 10/10. When reviewing or creating user interfaces, rate them 0-10 based on adherence to the principles below. A 10/10 means full alignment with all guidelines; lower scores indicate gaps to address. Always provide the current score and specific improvements needed to reach 10/10.

Krug's Three Laws of Usability

1. Don't Make Me Think

Core concept: Every question mark that pops into a user's head adds to their cognitive load and distracts from the task.

Why it works: Users are on a mission. They don't want to puzzle over labels, wonder what a link does, or decode clever marketing language. The less thinking required, the more likely they complete the task.

Key insights:

  • Clever names lose to clear names every time
  • Marketing-speak creates friction; plain language removes it
  • Unfamiliar categories and labels force users to stop and interpret
  • Links that could go anywhere create uncertainty
  • Buttons with ambiguous labels cause hesitation

Product applications:

Context Application Example
Navigation labels Use self-evident names "Get directions" not "Calculate route to destination"
CTAs Use action verbs users understand "Sign in" not "Access your account portal"
E-commerce Match user mental models "Add to cart" not "Proceed to purchase selection"
Form labels Describe what's needed plainly "Email address" not "Electronic correspondence identifier"
Error states Tell users what to do next "Check your email format" not "Validation error"

Read the full file on GitHub · 302 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 302 lines · 123 tokens per session scan A 6525e75a54db

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ux-heuristics is a skill published in the GitHub repository ne11nn/cantos-plugin (1 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 123 tokens to every session and 4,296 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 97% identical to heuristics, differing in 10 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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