UX Laws and Why They Are Important

What makes a person enter a new restaurant? What makes a user click on a button? What makes a shopper buy a product that they didn’t intend to? The human psychology can be easily influenced with the help of some easy techniques. Do you think the coffee aroma coming out of the new restaurant is unintentional? How likely are you to find a button that wasn’t big or bold in color? Do you think the shops in airports just happen to be placed before the gates?

Over the years, psychology has proven to influence people and have effective result. These principles or laws have been adopted by UX designers all over the world to enhance the user experience and improve existing quality. Here are 5 UX laws that have a very frequent application:

1. Zeigarnik Effect

The law states that ‘People remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.’ A psychologist — Kurt Lewin tested this theory by Bluma Zeigarnik, by exploring how the effect works in real life. He found out that waiters remembered those bills that were still due in comparison with the ones that had been paid.

One of the applications of this law can be seen on apps that encourage users to do better — healthcare apps, language apps, study apps, game apps etc. The motivation to reach the goal through incomplete tasks, encourages the users to go back and complete them. Using progress bars or charts increases the odds of the tasks being completed.

2. Fitts’s Law

The law states that ‘The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.’ Simply put, quicker movements are more prone to errors and small objects are easy to miss. More simply put, it it easier to catch a football than a golf ball. Or to grab a stapler than a paper clip.

One of the most important applications of the Fitts Law is the reason why the space bars are so big and accessible at the same time. The other applications include big and bold coloured buttons on apps and websites.

One other example is the navigation bars in apps and websites that remain constant and does not require movement on the cursor’s part, hence making the value of distance = 0.

3. Hick’s Law

The law states that ‘The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.’ The users get confused and take longer to decide when presented with a lot of choices. Its always better to segregate similar content into boxes and present the user with less options to choose from.

The application can be seen in most e commerce websites where they put information under titles like ‘recommended for you’ or ‘you may like’ or ‘new this summer’ sections to limit distractions.

4. Jakob’s Law

The 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.’ This means that the user already comes to the intended website with notions and expectations of how things are supposed to work and how the navigation is supposed to flow. Disappointing them will mean less interaction on the users’ part because they might just skip rather than learn a new flow.

Application of Jacob’s law can be seen on most websites with similar functions, for example — Ola and Uber. They both have similar interfaces so as to not confuse the users and make their experience hassle free.

5. Von Restorff Effect

The law, 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.’ Simply put, odd one out.

Users are more likely to focus on an object that is different from the rest of the objects. It maybe because of shape, size, color or motion. They are also more likely to remember that different object better than its similar counterparts.

The application of this effect can be seen in most websites and apps in their ‘Command button’ or the ‘Call to Action button’. They are purposely bigger and differently colored than the rest of the buttons so as to gain users’ attention and make an impact on their memory about the button’s placement and color.