Learning the Laws of UX... and actually remembering them - 100 Days of Design, Writing & Emotions

Design

Remembering the Laws of UX can feel like homework. We're all grown adults now and the last thing we want to do is homework or god forbid, resort to rote memorisation.



The brilliant Jon Yablonski has put together the 'Laws of UX' website with 20 of the top 'maxims and principles that designers can consider when building user interfaces'. If you're like me, you want to learn these psychological and visual laws and use them to inform your design.



The best way I've found for learning, and understanding the laws, has been:

1] Start a UX project e.g. redesigning a favourite app, website or bringing a new concept to life

2] At the quarter mark and half way mark of the design process, head over to the Laws of UX and skim the 20 laws, looking for any that apply to the product you're designing

3] Apply the law(s)!

4] Write a brief note, in your own words, summarising the law and how you applied it

5] Rinse and repeat to make the laws your bit- I mean to properly understand the law and ingrain it in your memory



What does it look like in action?

I followed the steps above today while working on Safe Shop, a concept for safer grocery shopping during COVID lockdown. Fitts' Law

• In my own words: 'this law is why interactive buttons are large (especially on mobile touch devices) - smaller buttons are harder and more time consuming to click'

• So, in accordance with this I increased the button sizes to stretch end-to-end on the content grid



Next, Hick’s Law

• Law: “The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices."

  • Simplify choices for the user by breaking down complex tasks into smaller steps.

• Once again, I saw an opportunity to change my design and make it more user friendly in accordance with Hick's Law. I experimented with breaking down the number of tasks from 3 on one page to 1 per page, across 3 pages. See below





Ta-da. And just like that, you can connect the newly learnt laws with other thoughts and ideas in your head, owning the knowledge and making it your own.



Emotions

The tiredness continues. The last few weeks and the next 2-3 weeks will involve a lot of big life changes so I think a degree of tiredness and lower levels of energy is expected. I'm taking the time to rest more than before and that's a small win.



There are a lot of emotions underneath the surface and I'm slightly afraid to touch them. I'm holding on to the fragile stability of the last 4 days and slightly weary of unbalancing myself since I know I need to finish the portfolio MVP in the next week or so.



So, as much as it's not the way I usually like to do things, emotions are taking a backseat for a few days.