Fitts’ Law is a mathematical model that predicts how long it will take to “point” at a target. It was first proposed by Paul Fitts in 1954. It takes into account where you are currently pointing relative to the target; How far away the target is and how big the target is. It has been [...]
The 80/20 rule, also known as Pareto’s Principle, states that 80% of an observable effect is caused by 20% of the variables at play. The first recognition of this rule was by Vilfredo Pareto, who in 1906, recognised that 80% of Italy’s wealth was owned by 20% of Italy’s population.
The same 80/20 split can be [...]
Alert boxes are a user interface element that pops up to alert the user of some critical piece of information. This post explains how to write them.
Lets start off by getting something out of the way. Don’t use alert boxes. They are jarring, often steal focus, interrupt the flow of what a user is doing [...]
The aesthetic usability effect is where a user will perceive an attractive product as easier to use than an ugly one. It doesn’t actually matter if they are easier to use or not they are perceived as such so users will make subconscious concessions and overlook many difficulties. The seminal work on this principle is [...]
The Five Hat Racks was first developed by Richard Saul Wurman in his book Information Anxiety. It’s a bizarre name, but makes sense: the hats are information…. hat racks organise hats…. and there are 5 ways to do it. Fine, call it what you like – at least it’s memorable! In a nutshell, there are [...]
Conventions are important. They emerge as the ‘way things are done’. As such, when we see a control on a device, we apply our previous knowledge of similar systems and make assumptions about what will happen when the control is activated. The more experience you have in a particular field, the more conventions you know. [...]
Sometimes it is necessary for us to integrate our software with another system in order to offer its features to our customers, in fact a new class of applications has emerged where separate systems are created from integrating other products – the ‘mashup’. Allowing a user to take advantage of another system from within your [...]
You’ve spent months working on your project and delivered it to the client. Initial feedback was positive, but they’ve spent a few days with it now and have asked if there is anything you can do to ‘make it more user friendly’. Ouch. It’s a bit late in the day to start any major restructuring. [...]
I posted yesterday’s tutorial to hacker news and I must say I’ve been overwhelmed with the response I got; so a big hello and thank you to everyone who clicked through! A few people were interested where the term CRAP came from and if I invented it. No, I didn’t invent it; all I did [...]
Graphic design has 4 basic principles that appear to varying degrees in all well designed works; Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. They are there to help guide you in making attractive designs, but I think they can (and should!) be applied when designing user interfaces. This post will show you how. Anyway, I like the [...]
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