A look at Laws of UX
There are several best practices discussed when talking about the laws of UX. These can be considered the general patterns/biases that we’ve found while observing humans make a decision.
There have been numerous attempts to study these behaviors and to come up with some metrics controlling which can influence the choices we make.
A collection of some of the best can be found on the Laws of UX website. Here are some of my favorites:
Fitt’s law
The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.
- Touch targets should be large enough for users to accurately select them.
- Touch targets should have ample spacing between them.
- Touch targets should be placed in areas of an interface that allow them to be easily acquired.
Target size and placement should be according to the input method being used
An amazing implementation of this can be seen in the Microsoft Office apps which support touch input and pointer input. The image shows how it changes the dimensions of Icon buttons and menu items to accommodate the different input methods
Another example of this can be seen in the flutter folio an app developed to showcase the cross-platform capabilities of flutter. As you can see it switches the context menu layout when switching from a pointer-based input to a touch-based input.
Here is a website where you can try to see it in action and try to play around by modifying the target size and distance variables
Hick’s Law
The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices
- Minimize choices when response times are critical to increasing decision time.
- Break complex tasks into smaller steps to decrease the cognitive load.
- Avoid overwhelming users by highlighting recommended options.
- Use progressive onboarding to minimize cognitive load for new users.
- Be careful not to simplify to the point of abstraction.
This one can also be seen in a much-simplified form as KISS — keep it simple, stupid
An excellent example of this can be seen in smart tv remotes trying to remove complexity by removing buttons altogether with brands now going even one step further and providing the most used apps as a one-touch input directly on remote
Jakob’s Law
Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know
- Users will transfer expectations they have built around one familiar product to another that appears similar.
- By leveraging existing mental models, we can create superior user experiences in which the users can focus on their tasks rather than on learning new models.
- When making changes, minimize discord by empowering users to continue using a familiar version for a limited time.
If you’ve tried to learn UX, someone might have told you about the book “Don’t make me think”
Jacob’s law emphasizes reducing cognitive load for someone using a product/service. Don’t create new jargon terms for your features and explanations use simple terms to explain exactly what is happening. The inclusion of unnecessary buzzwords does nothing more than increase word count in your report, it might look and sound cool but you would be much better of using simple terms and analogies for your explanation.
Implementation of this can be seen in skeuomorphism design
That’s all for folks, will keep posting about more UI & UX stuff.
