Help Video

 

 

1)  Jakob’s Law

Users spend most of their time on other sites, and they prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

 

Key Takeaways

•Users will transfer expectations they have built around one familiar product to another that appears similar.

•By leveraging existing mental models, we can create superior user experiences in which the users can focus on their tasks rather than on learning new models

 

Benefits:  the less mental energy users must spend learning an interface, the more they can dedicate themselves to achieving their tasks.

 

What is a Mental Model?

A mental model is what we think we know about a system, especially how it works.  We use our own existing mental models for existing systems we know and try to apply it to new systems.  The more overlap in these models, the easier the transition between the two systems.

 

          Example:  in early interface design the mental models from the real world were carried over.  Radio buttons, on/off switch,

 

Sameness

Link back to user experiences – physical world.

 

2)  Miller’s Law

The average person can keep only 7 or so items in their working memory

 

Key Takeaways

Organize content into smaller chunks to help users process, understand and memorize easily.

 

We can use chunking by grouping related content and objects together and using design elements such as color, scale , dividers, and spacing to make these groups visually distinctive from other groups.

 

No “Wall of Text”  chunk for pleasurable reading.

 

3)  Hick’s Law

The time it takes to decide increases with the number and complexity of choices available. 

 

Key Takeaways

          Break complex tasks into smaller steps to decrease mental effort.

 

Our objective is to understand what the user seeks to accomplish so that we can reduce or eliminate anything that doesn’t contribute to them successfully achieving their goals.  We strive to simplify complexity through efficiency and elegance.

 

Complexity extends beyond just the user interface; it can be applied to processes as well.  The absence of distinctive and clear call to action, unclear information architecture, unnecessary steps, too many choices or too much information – all of these can be obstacles to users seeking to perform a specific task.

 

Reduce choices available to users and their number of decisions.  This is example of why we use templates and within these templates we remove options such as font style, size, layout etc.  this limits the mental load for decisions that should be left to the company.

 

For example, at the beginning of the search, Google does not ask users to define if they want words, images, videos etc.  First the user focusses on a well-defined search, next the search results are presented, finally the user may filter results based on the above criteria (video, images, words…)

 

Use the help doc I have as like an ‘onboarding’ process.

 

4)  Postel’s Law

Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others

 

Key Takeaways

          Accept variable input from users, translating that input to meet your requirements, defining boundaries for input and providing clear feedback to each user.

 

That is, the system should be error tolerant.

 

For forms, using Postel Law, the first consideration is to be conservative in how much information you ask people to provide.  (Me:  minimize questions and use autofill whenever possible.

 

My example:  in phone numbers, the “-“ should be accepted but not needed.  If there, system uses it (better way to display) if not, adds the “-“ in the phone number.

Peak-End Rule

People judge an experience based on how they felt at the peak and at its end, rather than on the total sum or average of every moment of the experiment.

 

We remember our life experiences as a series of representative snapshots, not comprehensive timeline of events.

 

5)  Aesthetic-Usability Effect

Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.

 

6)  Von Restorff Effect

When multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembers

 

Key Takeaways

          Make important information or key actions visually distinctive.

 

For example, if you’re deleting your account, put a danger icon and make the box say “Delete” (not the bland OK) and make it a bold color (red?)

 

7)  Tesler’s Law

also known as the law of conservation of complexity, states that for any system there is a certain amount of complexity that cannot be reduced.

 

Key Question:  who should bear the burden of complexity within an application or a process – the user, or the designers and developers?  This is the fundamental question.

 

We reach a point at which complexity cannot be reduced any further but can only be transferred from one place to another.  At this point, it finds its way either onto the user interface or into the processes and workflows of designers and developers.

Complexity bias – our bias favors complex and intricate solutions over straightforward ones, often because complexity is associated with intelligence, ..

 

Example of distilled complexity:  email.  To send, must have a ‘to’ and ‘from’  can’t be reduced further.  To help, email client autofill your name in ‘from’ and as you start to type in ‘to’ it automatically suggests users.  Also, although “subject’ is not required, for several reasons it is strongly           recommended.  So, if the ‘subject’ is empty the email client will suggest you add a subject.

 

Paradox of the active users

Users never read software manuals – they jump in and experiment with the tool.  Making errors and learning.  This happens because users are often motivated to complete immediate tasks.

 

We can account for this approach by new users by making guidance accessible throughout the product experience.  We can design I to fit within g the context of use so that it can help these active users, no matter what path they choose to take (e.g. tooltips with helpful information.

 

Progressive Disclosure:  anytime we use a dropdown, accordion or toggle that reveals content that is hidden by default, we are using progressive disclosure.  This makes designs simpler because it enables us to defer less important actions, advanced features or additional content to a secondar screen (e.g. dropdown, accordion)