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Laws of UX

lawsofux.com

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Re: Laws of UX

#151

Post by jwdunne »

zzzcpan wrote: post #141
jwdunne wrote: post #139

It would be better if, instead of a useless albeit pretty icon, there was a brief description of what the law is about. Fitts's Law tells me nothing about what it is other than its a UX "law" coined by someone called Fitts.

Here's a good article about this law, with many examples: http://asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html

Wasn't really about the law itself. The same applies to all laws listed.

I want to know which ones are most relevant to me. I'd like to see a summary for each one so I can make that decision before loading another page. Otherwise, I needlessly have to click on them, make a decision and click back if not.

This is similar to how a blog typically shows an excerpt for each post on the blog index. See Jakob's law.

Re: Laws of UX

#153

Post by soneca »

have_faith wrote: post #70

Did anyone else enjoy it for what it was? I get the criticisms, you want the web to be homogenised and free from any form of expression that doesn't present every piece of information in it's most human-machine digestible form, I get it. But it was pretty simple to use and the flair was minimal. I don't understand the pitchforks. There's a few minor annoyances like the back button not working as expected, but they ar…

Please don't draw a strawman about me and the arguments I made pretending you "get" what I want with such dismissive and patronizing attitude.

I was one of the critics and I gave very explicit, objective criticism on the points I considered awful. And it has nothing to do with what your arrogant intelect generalized.

Re: Laws of UX

#154

Post by TeMPOraL »

boomlinde wrote: post #66
ComputerGuru wrote: post #44

For a website all about UX, the site is almost impossible to use (at least on mobile), both from an intuitiveness perspective and from a technical one. I am entirely unsure what I’m supposed to click on, if what I’m seeing is an animation or a loading progress bar, the back button gave me a blank, black page, and everything on the site would be better if it were simply static html without all this JavaScript garbage…

I clicked on one of the book covers and ended up with an abstract full screen animation that ran for five seconds before I figured out it was a full screen page header. I'm confident that web design is the way it is mostly as a means to keep the people that work with it employed. A simple, straight forward implementation with a little color and layout to make it stand out would have been much easier to navigate and d…

I share your opinion. I guess I'm in the minority too.

Maybe we need a flag or some banner, or something.

Re: Laws of UX

#155

Post by TeMPOraL »

platz wrote: post #105
cptskippy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different doesn't equal better.

how are measuring "better"? If it wins you a contract, then the market has judged your fancy-checkboxes as "better"

That's IMO the root of the problem. Market works as it always does, it optimizes for profit. So things are designed to be sellable instead of useful.

Re: Laws of UX

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #140
reaperducer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

331K transferred. Less than 1K of actual readable text. In the about section, the author brags about using Sketch, Gulp, SASS, Nunjucks, and a third-party font. Seriously? He couldn't have just envisioned that thing in his head and put it straight to code?

It's actually 1.3kB of text. Here's the entire contents of the page, for anyone else who can't read the original. Clicking on each entry brings you to a page with the same text and a Wikipedia quote on the origins of the law and a couple sources for further reading: 1. Fitts's Law: The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. 2. Hick's Law: The time it takes to make a decision…

Basically, the whole contents of this website fits in a average-sized HN comment.

This is what I mean when I say about "toys" vs. "tools", or "designing for sellability" vs. "designing for delivering value". Your version of that site delivers pure value. Anything more than that - like e.g. images vaguely related to content - is just wasting user's attention, bandwidth, compute and power bill.

Re: Laws of UX

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

soneca wrote: post #5
tomgp wrote: post #2

Is there a law of UX related to making a user scroll thousands of pixels to read 10 sentences?

I agree. And the laws are stated in complex sentences, so I really could use some more explanation. To learn more I have to click, go to another page, wait for a slow animation of the poster design and only then I could one paragraph explaining it further. And when I go back to the home page, it takes up to the top at the first law and I have to scroll it all over again to the point I was before. Awful experience. It…

I read them all. They have nothing to do with proper UX. They're just basics of perception.

The site is doing the equivalent of advertising as "rules of efficient chair design", and then listing laws of thermodynamics.

Re: Laws of UX

#158

Post by platz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #155
platz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how are measuring "better"? If it wins you a contract, then the market has judged your fancy-checkboxes as "better"

That's IMO the root of the problem. Market works as it always does, it optimizes for profit. So things are designed to be sellable instead of useful .

can't even program a computer these days without becoming a marxist!

Re: Laws of UX

#159

Post by TeMPOraL »

oblio wrote: post #78
js8 wrote: post #26

The desktop apps of the 90s was the heyday of UX. There are many positive things that could be said, but in the interest of brevity, I'll mention just two. Customizability. Users could set up their own hot keys, and even their own tool bars. Discoverability. Every UI widget (knob) had a tooltip, which explained its function. When a menu item was being browsed, there was a help line on the bottom that explained its fu…

> The desktop apps of the 90s was the heyday of UX for power users . Regular users didn't set up their own hotkeys or their toolbars. And they definitely didn't read the help or tool tips. The best UX for regular users, not interested in computers, is somewhere between websites and mobile apps.

Regular users are not interested in computers. They're interested in getting shit done, and getting on with their lives.

Which is precisely what modern UX makes harder. You see, regular users aren't "neanderthal users". They have a brain and some amount of focus, and if they have to use an application/website more than few times, they'll figure out and appreciate any feature that lets them do their work more efficiently. Unfortunately, modern UX trends are all about removing productivity, turning tools into toys.

Re: Laws of UX

#160

Post by TeMPOraL »

platz wrote: post #158
TeMPOraL wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's IMO the root of the problem. Market works as it always does, it optimizes for profit. So things are designed to be sellable instead of useful .

can't even program a computer these days without becoming a marxist!

Haha, no :). I'm just advocating the same thing you seem to - understanding market incentives as an optimization system, and realizing that its goals are not always aligned with human goals.
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