The “Number of Taps” Argument in Web & Mobile UI Design
Are you counting them?
Do you find yourself comparing two design interfaces and coming to a conclusion that one is better than the other based merely on the amount of taps it takes to get the same thing done? Let’s dig into this a little more.
The “Three click rule”, though applied to desktop applications, can be applied to mobile as well and has been around for quite a while. This rule claims that a user will get frustrated if they are required to tap or click more than three times to find what they need. Logically, this makes sense - there’s no doubt that user’s who spend time tapping around an app will become frustrated when they don’t find what they need.
Are the amount of taps or clicks in your app directly relative to the users frustrations with the app? If you think yes, you may want to reconsider. An article published on User Interface Engineering discovered that users aren’t more likely to resign to failure after three clicks versus a higher number such as 10+ taps or clicks. “Hardly anybody gave up after three clicks” said Joshua Porter, the analyst who conducted the study.
In the study, which consisted of 44 users and 620 tasks, he found that users very rarely gave up and they would actually keep clicking. According to the “Three click rule” you’d expect to see a high drop off around three clicks, which in turn they did not. On the flip side, the amount of dissatisfied users remained consistently the same throughout the test regardless of the amount of taps.
The main idea here to plainly put it, is that when the user cannot find what it is they’re looking for, their initial thought is they are tapping too much when the main issue is that they can’t find what they need. Attempting to design a UI informed merely on the “amount of taps” will result in a cluttered interface. “We know the user wants this and that and does this and that, so let’s just put all of it on the screen so they don’t ever have to tap”. This approach sort of comes off as a bit lazy, no? Everything they need is there, however, when you cram it all on a single screen, with no hierarchy and not being cognizant of the users intended workflow, you risk a cluttered interface that actually works against the user.
On your next project, if you find yourself comparing designs and making decisions based solely on the amount of taps it takes to get something done, keep all this in mind. As builders of digital products we need to be intentional in every design decision we make and understand the repercussions of our decisions. Understanding the usage of the features in your app and how the user interacts with them is a great place to start.
