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After all the criticism here I took a shot of paraphrasing the website in a page length post: https://yozy.net/2018/01/10-laws-of-ux-digested/ A kind of an opinionated tl;dr
Personally, I would significantly expand where Hick's law should not be applied. Examine the example provided that compares two remote controls: one with a common suite of buttons, and another with a dramatically reduced set of buttons. The site seems to suggest that at the very least the stripped remote yields ratings of "better user experience" from users. I would argue that such ratings alone should not drive UX decision-making.
In my life, I have seen the trend of simplifying user interfaces chip away at functionality in virtually every interaction I have with technology, and I don't feel better for it. I really miss the opportunity to more finely control devices and applications according to my needs and wants. The most recent technological epoch—focused so much on mobile devices as it is—has been among the most pronounced with its stripping of functionality (ostensibly to make things easier to use on tiny displays).
I often feel that this law is misapplied, perhaps subconsciously as an excuse to not build more comprehensive functionality. Why build a hard button that can turn on and off Closed Captioning when you can just put that in a menu, or better yet, not implement Closed Captioning at all?
(To be clear: it can be perfectly fine to hide infrequently-used features in special menus. I use about:config in Firefox routinely. What bothers me most is that, for example, the browser on my phone doesn't have a tenth the options of Firefox and certainly doesn't have anything like about:config. The argument this is because it's a small screen device seems hollow to me; the real reason almost always rings of laziness and contempt for customization by users. Sometimes it will be spun as a means to reduce testing time—laziness by another name—as if mobile software has had any track record of being tested more thoroughly versus old desktop software.)
Designers, hear my plea: Let's start pushing back on Hick's Law. Yes, in cases of needing a fast decision, a stripped user interface is agreeable. But in many cases, we're not acutely rushed while using our devices. Generally, I want more functionality from technology, not less. Stop using a UX law as cover for laziness and reduced feature sets.
[1] https://uxplanet.org/design-principles-hicks-law-quick-decis...
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…
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…
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?
That's a pretty snobby thing to say. So what they needed to design something in Sketch. So what they used Sass and Gulp.
If you're deriding someone for using a tool to help them with something, can you be derided for using a napkin to sketch an algorithm or something?
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…
* Hamburger menu upper right (90% of people are right handed) * Sticky top menu with breadcrumbs * Consistent back button behavior
Only nit was large graphics/icons and requirement to click on them to "reveal" the law. That content should have been front and center on home page with drill-links to details.
Yes, we spend more time on other sites and therefore, we are used to the UX patterns used on other sites, but that doesn't mean that all other pages are doing good.
Actually, we do not choose the sites we are on purely based on UX patterns. Instead we choose the sites by the service/functionality they are offering.
So assuming that other pages are doing good UX and inventing new patterns will irritate users might be a good advise for junior UX designers, but UX experts should always question the status quo and search for improvements. So defining it as a law to stick to the UX patterns of the majority of sites is just wrong.
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…
> 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. You don't get it, you just minimized and dismissed everyone's objections to this site. As a power point presentation, this site is great. As a line item on your resume, sure. As a resource that someone can use and referenc…
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…