Absolutely! That's the basic defense I've had in my head whenever anyone used to trash Jakob Nielsen, for example. Yes he sets out lists of guidelines to follow

Absolutely! That's the basic defense I've had in my head whenever anyone used to trash Jakob Nielsen, for example. Yes he sets out lists of guidelines to follow that you can brainlessly treat like a checklist, but you won't get the full understanding behind why he created the list (and in what context) if you treat the guidelines that way. Jeff Veen gave an analogy at an Adaptive Path workshop I went to a long time ago. I'm no expert and I don't remember the exact verbiage, it was something along the lines of how in kayaking, there's a few basic rules of safety when it comes to tides and currents, but if you don't understand how those rules came to be, then you're left completely vulnerable to very dangerous edge cases where the rules don't apply, like when paddling under a bridge. If you just stick to a checklist in the situation, you'll get sucked under and die.