11 laws of User Experience that pros use to make their designs awesome! - geprestige
Published: 2022-10-17 17:48:10

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Dear Designer 👩‍💻👨‍💻

The major reason why your UI and UX suck despite all the effort you're putting in is because you're not applying the laws of UX

Here are 11 laws of User Experience that pros use to make their designs awesome! (Part 1)

🧵 

###1/. Pareto Principle: ⚖️
This law states that 80% of consequences are the effects of 20% of the causes.

Also known as the 80/20 rule, as a designer this implies that 20% of the effort you put into your work will yield 80% of the results you get. 

In UX, Pareto principle could imply that 80% of your users use 20% of the features you designed and so on. 

Although this is not a fixed law, it often holds true in most cases.

[https://usabilitygeek.com/pareto-principle-and-ux/](https://usabilitygeek.com/pareto-principle-and-ux/) 

###2/. Jakob’s Law: 💻
This law states that “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.” 

Its implication for you as a designer is to ensure you make use of familiar features or elements that users are familiar with and not go all out to reinvent the wheel. 

[https://lawsofux.com/jakobs-law/](https://lawsofux.com/jakobs-law/) 

###3/. Miller’s Law: 🧠
This law states that “The average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus) items in their working memory.” 

In UX, it implies that when designing you should organize tasks &amp; items in smaller chunks to ease workload on users memory, bearing in mind that memory 

capacity vary for different users.

[https://blog.prototypr.io/design-principles-for-reducing-cognitive-load-84e82ca61abd?gi=db72c265e311](https://blog.prototypr.io/design-principles-for-reducing-cognitive-load-84e82ca61abd?gi=db72c265e311) 

AdSpace Here!!

###4/. Zeigarnik Effect: ❌
This law states that “ People remember completed or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.”

To apply this as a designer, 

find ways to make users finish tasks that could be seen as uninteresting such as adding a progress bar when filling forms etc. 

[https://www.twohourssleep.com/what-is-the-zeigarnik-effect-the-psychology-of-design-6-7/](https://www.twohourssleep.com/what-is-the-zeigarnik-effect-the-psychology-of-design-6-7/) 

###5/. Doherty Threshold: ⏱️
This law states that “Productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (&lt;400ms) that ensures that neither has to wait on the other.” 

This means that users enjoy fast feedback and tend to do more on a website or app if the response time is quick enough. 

As a designer, cutting response time should be central in your work and you can use animations or progress bars to make 

wait time tolerable in unavoidable situations.

[https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/importance-of-doherty-threshold-ebe65f0b9fab](https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/importance-of-doherty-threshold-ebe65f0b9fab) 

###6/. Hick’s Law: ⛓️
This law states that “The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of choices and complexities.”

This law simply implies that you KISS (Keep It Short &amp; Simple). 

Do not present users with too many choices. Only present the absolutely necessary options to ease their decision-making process. 

[https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/hick-s-law-making-the-choice-easier-for-users](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/hick-s-law-making-the-choice-easier-for-users) 


###7/. Serial Position Effect: 🔁
This is the tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than the ones in-between.

This effect is backed by strong research and you can take advantage of it as a designer by placing items of maximum importance in the first and last places of the list.

[https://www.techtarget.com](https://www.techtarget.com)


###8/. Von Restorff Effect: 👁‍🗨
AKA The Isolation effect predicts that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.


As a designer, this law implies that you make important information visually distinctive, e.g with typography, you can underline or bolden important words in a sentence or paragraph.

[https://lawsofux.com/von-restorff-effect/](https://lawsofux.com/von-restorff-effect/)


###9/. Fitt’s Law: 📲

This law states that “The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target”

This is an important guide in designing command buttons or CTA buttons,

they should be large enough to make clicking easily accessible and visible.

[https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-s-law-the-importance-of-size-and-distance-in-ui-design](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-s-law-the-importance-of-size-and-distance-in-ui-design)


###10/. Occam’s Razor: 🧾

This is a problem-solving principle that “among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”

This means that designers should strive to eliminate unnecessary details, and not complicate things by adding elements or features that are not primary to the task.

So as not to unwittingly push users to go for visually uncomplicated tasks thereby leading to the unintended results.

[https://jonyablonski.medium.com/designing-with-occams-razor-3692df2f3c7f](https://jonyablonski.medium.com/designing-with-occams-razor-3692df2f3c7f)

AdSpace Here!!

###11/. Tesler’s Law: ⚙️
AKA The Law of Conservation of Complexity, states that “for any system, there is a certain amount of complexity which cannot be reduced.”

This means that as designers, while we strive for simplicity,
we should not neglect or water down certain standards of complexity which are expected and accepted. So you have to know when complexity is the norm in every design situation.

[https://uxtoast.com/ux-laws/teslers-law
](https://uxtoast.com/ux-laws/teslers-law)

PS: These laws and guidelines were not created to box in your creativity as a designer, instead to improve your understanding of human interaction and make your designs not just aesthetically pleasing, but also functional in solving the needs of users.

Whew! This has been a long read, if you found it helpful please give me a follow [@geprestige](https://twitter.com/geprestige).

I'm constantly sharing insights to help designers grow. 

You can check my previous threads as well for more tips and tweaks to help you in your design journey!

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