5 UX Laws That Every Successful Web Designer Should Know

06 Jul 5 UX Laws That Every Successful Web Designer Should Know

UX Laws

Every designer knows there are certain rules and practices that make design look good. These can be things like balance, harmony, composition and more. Yet, do you know there are actual laws created for user experience by author Jon Yablonski? Using psychology and user-habits, he created a set of UX laws which are proven to be successful when creating interfaces. 

Here I’ve decided to list the 5 best UX laws and practices that can help your website design. These all can help improve the way you layout your designs and help you understand which content is effective. 

1. Jakob’s Law 

Jakob’s UX Law states “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 is an important law which essentially describes the idea of familiarity playing a role in successful web design. If users perceive your website to be similar to others they have used, then they will likely interact and find it intuitive to use. This doesn’t mean you need to copy or recreate another company’s website, it simply means that things like composition should be similar to what many websites use. 

2. Doherty Threshold

The Doherty Threshold says “productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (<400ms) that ensures that neither has to wait on the other.” 

Ever visited a website or page that takes too long to load so you leave to find another one? 

This is why the Doherty Threshold is essential for ensuring your website’s users won’t get frustrated and leave your site. A response rate of 4 seconds or less is the ideal range for users, but the faster the better. This applies to every interactive element on your website, like buttons or forms. Whilst this is a more technical element of website design, it is one of the most important aspects to retain audiences. 

3. Aesthetic-Usability Effect

The Aesthetic-Usability Effect states “users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.” 

Design that is considered aesthetic can be up for debate, but pleasing design is generally recognisable for any individual, regardless of your creative experience. Users will prefer simplistic and creative designs that are intuitive and easy to follow. This can be achieved through colours, layout and shape.

This is particularly important for areas of your website that are trying to get users to interact, otherwise known as ‘call-to-action’. So making sure your website uses pleasing designs will help boost interaction and usability. 

4. Fitts’s Law and Hick’s Law

Fitts’s Law discusses “the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.” and Hick’s Law is “the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.”

These two UX laws are paired together as they work well for successful web design. Fitts’s law talks about the layout of targets, like buttons and interactables, to be large and spaced out for easy navigation. Combined with Hick’s Law, giving users too many options when making a request means users will take too long to decide at critical times.

Breaking down complex tasks, through simplifying and highlighting common responses, helps users make important decisions. If you then use cleanly composed buttons which are easy to navigate, users will have no trouble making decisions on your website. 

5. Peak-End Rule

The Peak-End Rule describes how “people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.” 

The Peak-End Rule details the importance of ensuring your user remembers a positive experience at the peak of their journey and at the end. This means you should identify the moments when your product or service is most helpful, then ensure that users have a beneficial experience when reaching these areas.

Finishing the journey with something positive helps keep a good image of your business in your audience’s mind. An easy example of this: the user can complete their task through your service. Lastly, remember that people recall negative experiences more strongly than positive ones. So be careful not to leave any simple issues that cause users to remember a  bad experience. 

Successful website design is essential for growing your business and audiences. These 5 UX laws are some of the most important principles which help with successful website design. You can check out the rest of Jon Yablonski’s UX Laws here. 

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