| Front | Fitts’s Law |
| Back | OverviewThe time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.Key TakeawaysMake elements you wish to be easily selectable large and position them close to users.This law especially applies to buttons, which the purpose of these elements is to be easy to find and select.OriginsIn 1954, psychologist Paul Fitts, examining the human motor system, showed that the time required to move to a target depends on the distance to it, yet relates inversely to its size. By his law, fast movements and small targets result in greater error rates, due to the speed-accuracy trade-off. Although multiple variants of Fitts’ law exist, all encompass this idea. Fitts’ law is widely applied in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. For example, this law influenced the convention of making interactive buttons large (especially on finger-operated mobile devices)—smaller buttons are more difficult (and time-consuming) to click. Likewise, the distance between a user’s task/attention area and the task-related button should be kept as short as possible. |
| Tags | UX |
| Front | Von Restorff Effect |
| Back | OVERVIEW The Von Restorff effect, also known as The Isolation Effect, predicts that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. KEY TAKEAWAYS Make important information or key actions visually distinctive. ORIGINS The theory was coined by German psychiatrist and pediatrician Hedwig von Restorff (1906–1962), who, in her 1933 study, found that when participants were presented with a list of categorically similar items with one distinctive, isolated item on the list, memory for the item was improved. |
| Tags | UX |
| Front | Jakob’s Law |
| Back | OverviewUsers 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.Key TakeawaysYou can simplify the learning process for users by providing familiar design patterns.OriginsJakob's Law was coined by Jakob Nielsen, a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman (former VP of research at Apple Computer). Dr. Nielsen established the 'discount usability engineering' movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. |
| Tags | UX |