The Laws of UX
Principles that shape how humans interact with design.
The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer.
Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that's more usable.
Productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (around 400ms) that ensures that neither has to wait on the other.
The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.
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.
Elements tend to be perceived in groups if they are sharing an area with a clearly defined boundary.
People will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest form possible, because it is the interpretation that requires the least cognitive effort of us.
Objects that are near, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together.
The human eye tends to perceive similar elements in a design as a complete picture, shape, or group, even if those elements are separated.
Elements that are visually connected are perceived as more related than elements with no connection.
The average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory.
Among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
Any task will inflate until all of the available time is spent.
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.
Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send.
Users have a propensity to best remember the first and last items in a series.
For any system there is a certain amount of complexity which cannot be removed.
When multiple similar items are present, the one that differs the most is most likely to be remembered.
People remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones.