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Laws of UX

lawsofux.com

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Re: Laws of UX

#21

Post by alxlaz »

wingerlang wrote: post #11
gkya wrote: post #7

Gkya's law of usefulness of a web page: The usefulness of a web page is a function of the multiplication of the number of laws it cites w/o any context whatsoever and the ratio of the lines of text such page contains in a screenful over how many it could've contained. > The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. Wat? > The time it takes to make a decision increases with the…

> The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. If you need to move the cursor far and to a small target, it will take a long time to hone in on it. The shorter you have to move it, and the larger the target - the easier it is to click. For example the menu on macOS is always at the top of the screen, making its target HUGE and is therefore basically O(1) to hit.

What (I believe) gkya was trying to point out is that "the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target" is a rather pointless statement. Of course it's a function of the distance to and size of a target; but Fitts' law consists not in this observation (which was nothing new to Fitts himself, and most likely to the entire human race ever since the first Paleolithic man tried to throw a stone at something), but in the actual function, ID = log(2D/W).

The cargo-cult reading of Fitts' work which is so prevalent nowadays probably accounts for many of the instances of cargo-cult UX design that are so popular today.

Re: Laws of UX

#22

Post by pavlov »

tomgp wrote: post #2

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

Maybe: “Respect users’ screen real estate.”

And the corollary: “Don’t fear information density. Remove decoration if it allows faster access to the information that matters.”

Re: Laws of UX

#23

Post by elcapitan »

wingerlang wrote: post #11
gkya wrote: post #7

Gkya's law of usefulness of a web page: The usefulness of a web page is a function of the multiplication of the number of laws it cites w/o any context whatsoever and the ratio of the lines of text such page contains in a screenful over how many it could've contained. > The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. Wat? > The time it takes to make a decision increases with the…

> The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. If you need to move the cursor far and to a small target, it will take a long time to hone in on it. The shorter you have to move it, and the larger the target - the easier it is to click. For example the menu on macOS is always at the top of the screen, making its target HUGE and is therefore basically O(1) to hit.

Unless you use a very large screen, in that case you often have to move the mouse over half the desk any time you want to click the menu. I remember the fun I had back when Apple produced those 30" screens.

Re: Laws of UX

#24

Post by radiorental »

dozzie wrote: post #14

You do realize that this "UX" thing was for decades called "ergonomics" and had a large body of research behind, do you?

Did you mean to say 'Usability'

Ergonomics was and still is it's own thing. It very much relates to the physical world exclusively.

Re: Laws of UX

#25

Post by carlmr »

dozzie wrote: post #14

You do realize that this "UX" thing was for decades called "ergonomics" and had a large body of research behind, do you?

Problem being that web design is the most likely computer discipline to not actually have that many academics in it.

Re: Laws of UX

#26

Post by js8 »

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 function. Items that could be clicked were either visually distinct (such as buttons), or highlighted when hovering over them.

Re: Laws of UX

#27

Post by dozzie »

radiorental wrote: post #24
dozzie wrote: post #14

You do realize that this "UX" thing was for decades called "ergonomics" and had a large body of research behind, do you?

Did you mean to say 'Usability' Ergonomics was and still is it's own thing. It very much relates to the physical world exclusively.

So a digital interface that is displayed on a screen of a desktop is "UX", but the very same digital interface that is displayed on a touchscreen attached to industrial machine is suddenly a totally different field "ergonomics"? Or does it need physical buttons to be called that?

Re: Laws of UX

#28

Post by gkya »

wingerlang wrote: post #11
gkya wrote: post #7

Gkya's law of usefulness of a web page: The usefulness of a web page is a function of the multiplication of the number of laws it cites w/o any context whatsoever and the ratio of the lines of text such page contains in a screenful over how many it could've contained. > The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. Wat? > The time it takes to make a decision increases with the…

> The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. If you need to move the cursor far and to a small target, it will take a long time to hone in on it. The shorter you have to move it, and the larger the target - the easier it is to click. For example the menu on macOS is always at the top of the screen, making its target HUGE and is therefore basically O(1) to hit.

It's not that I don't understand this. It's that a web page on "the laws of UX" counts on the readers' interpretative capabilites to get such point across, and excludes any concrete example to make their point clear.

Re: Laws of UX

#29

Post by gkya »

alxlaz wrote: post #21
wingerlang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. If you need to move the cursor far and to a small target, it will take a long time to hone in on it. The shorter you have to move it, and the larger the target - the easier it is to click. For example the menu on macOS is always at the top of the screen, making its target HUGE and is therefore basically O(1) to hit.

What (I believe) gkya was trying to point out is that "the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target" is a rather pointless statement. Of course it's a function of the distance to and size of a target; but Fitts' law consists not in this observation (which was nothing new to Fitts himself, and most likely to the entire human race ever since the first Paleolithic man tried to thr…

I don't really know Fitts' work, but I do understand that what that sentence means is obviously "smaller things are harder to click or tap". But that is very obvious and thus meaningless without indicating what that implies: e.g. "make bigger buttons".

Re: Laws of UX

#30

Post by rmrfrmrf »

alxlaz wrote: post #21
wingerlang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. If you need to move the cursor far and to a small target, it will take a long time to hone in on it. The shorter you have to move it, and the larger the target - the easier it is to click. For example the menu on macOS is always at the top of the screen, making its target HUGE and is therefore basically O(1) to hit.

What (I believe) gkya was trying to point out is that "the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target" is a rather pointless statement. Of course it's a function of the distance to and size of a target; but Fitts' law consists not in this observation (which was nothing new to Fitts himself, and most likely to the entire human race ever since the first Paleolithic man tried to thr…

I tried to upvote you, but hit the downvote button instead :(. Oh well.
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