Laws of UX Flashcards
Accot-Zhai Steering Law
The time necessary to guide a pointer to drag a finger along a path that has borders. (Moving a cursor along a long, straight line is physically difficult for humans due to the physiology of our elbows ad wrists. The longer the motion, the greater the chance of error)
Aesthetic-Usability Effect
Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable
Campbell’s Law
The more important a metric is in social decision making, the more likely it is to be manipulated.
Doherty Threshold
Productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (<400ms) that ensures that neither has to wait on the other
Fitt’s Law
The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target
Goal-Gradient Effect
The tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal. (The closer users are to completing a task, the faster they work towards reaching it.)
Hick’s Law
The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.
Jacob’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.
Law of Closure
The tendency to complete an incomplete shape in order to rationalize the whole. (Too little information makes it difficult for users to fill in the blanks)
Law of Common Region
Elements tend to be perceived into groups if they are sharing an area with a clearly defined boundary.
Law of Continuity
Elements arranged on a line or curve are perceived to be more related than elements not on the line or curve.
Law of Proximity
Objects that are near to, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together.
Law of Prägnanz
People will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest from possible, because it is the interpretation that requires the least cognitive effort.
Law of Similarity
The human eye tends to perceive similar elements in a design as a complete pictures, shape or groups, even if those elements are separated.
Law of Uniform Connectedness
Elements that are visually connected are perceived as more related than elements with no connection.
Miller’s Law
The average person can only keep seven (plus/minus 2) items in their working memory.
Occam’s Razor
Among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. (The best method for reducing complexity is to avoid it in the first place)
Paradox of the Active User
Users never read manuals but start using software immediately.
Pareto Principle
For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20$ of the cases. (Inputs and outputs are often not evenly distributed)
Parkinson’s Law
Any task will inflate until all of the available time is spent. (Limit the time it takes to complete a task from the expected duration will improve overall UX)
Postel’s Law
Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. (Be empathetic to, flexible about, and tolerant of any of the various actions the user could take or any input they might provide)
Accept variable input from users, translating that input to meet your requirements, defining boundaries for input, and providing clear feedback to the user.
Peak-End Rule
People judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.
Serial Position Effect
Users have a tendency to best remember the first and last items in a series.
Simon Effect
Reaction times are usually faster, and reactions are usually more accurate, when the signal occurs in the same relative location as the response. (People can more quickly find interaction elements that appear in the relative location at which they expect a change to occur)
Stroop Effect
The mental dissonance caused when we attempt to make sense of two conflicting attributes at once. (Reaction time is delayed when our minds attempt to process information that conflicts our understanding)
Tesler’s Law
In any system, there is a certain amount of complexity that cannot be reduced.
Von Restorff Effect
When multiple similar objects are present, the on that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.
Zeigarnik Effect
People remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
The Principle of Least Effort
People will take the path or action requiring the least amount of mental and physical energy to complete the task. (Whenever you must explain smth to users, show them with examples instead of telling them about in the text)
