---
title: Custom Guidelines
description: "Build your own Heurio guideline — a custom checklist of rules that reflects your company's design system, content standards, or QA process — then run it on any live website."
canonical: "https://www.heurio.co/docs/comment-heurio-details/custom-guidelines"
section: Comment Details
updated: 2026-05-11
---
# Custom Guidelines

## How to create a custom guideline in Heurio

_Total time: PT5M_

1. **Open the Guidelines page in the web app** — Sign in to heurio.app and visit /profile/guidelines.
2. **Click 'Add custom'** — Click the blue '+ Add custom' button in the top-right of the Guidelines page.
3. **Add guideline info** — Enter a name and a short description for the custom guideline — for example, 'Acme Design System Checklist v2'.
4. **Add rules** — Add each rule of the guideline (e.g. 'Buttons use primary color', 'Headings follow type scale'). Save the guideline.
5. **Use the custom guideline on a project** — From the extension or web app, set your new custom guideline as the project's global guideline, or pick it from the Book of Guidelines on any individual heurio.

> **Use case:** encode your design system, brand voice, or QA checklist as a guideline so every reviewer tags issues with the exact same rules.

Heurio lets you create custom guideline systems for evaluations tailored to your team's needs or organizational standards. This guide covers how to create and use custom guidelines.

## How to create custom guidelines

1. Navigate to [Heurio's web app](https://heurio.app/profile/guidelines) and click the blue "+ Add custom" CTA in the top right.
2. The "Create custom guidelines" popup appears, consisting of two steps:
    - **Guideline info:** enter the name and description for the new guideline system.
    - **Rules:** add the rules that reflect your project's requirements or organizational standards.

<DocVideo src="/docs/comment-heurio-details/custom-guidelines/custom-guidelines.mp4" poster="/docs/comment-heurio-details/custom-guidelines/custom-guidelines.jpg" width={976} height={720} />

Creating a custom guideline system in the [Heurio web app](https://heurio.app/).

## Boosting workflows with custom guidelines

Once created, custom guidelines can be used while [evaluating websites](/docs/how-to-use-heurio/heuristic-evaluation), ensuring they meet the specific standards set out by the guidelines.

- Custom guidelines enable new or less experienced colleagues to evaluate websites effectively, finding bugs, misalignments, and other issues.
- This feature is especially useful for companies with **specific guidelines** for how their corporate websites should look and function.
- A team can create **their own evaluation system or company-wide principles**, ensuring thorough adherence to organizational standards.

## Frequently asked questions

### Why would I create a custom guideline instead of using a built-in one?

Custom guidelines let you encode rules specific to your product — design-system tokens, brand voice, internal QA checklists. Built-in guidelines (Nielsen, Rams, Shneiderman) cover general usability; custom guidelines cover the rest.

### Can multiple teammates use the same custom guideline?

Yes. Custom guidelines are stored at the user or organization level so they're available across every project the user (or organization) has access to.

### Can I edit or delete rules after creating the guideline?

Yes. Rules can be added, edited, reordered, or deleted from the Guidelines page in the web app at any time.

### Will existing heurios update when I rename a rule?

Existing heurios keep the reference to the rule, so renaming the rule updates the label everywhere it's used. Deleting a rule removes the reference from past heurios but does not delete the heurios themselves.