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Principles

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.

Fitts’s Law

The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.

Hick's Law

The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available.

Miller's Law

The average person can keep only 7 (± 2) items in their working memory.

Postel's Law

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

Peak-End Rule

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

Aesthetic-Usability Effect

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

Von Restorff Effect

When multiple similar objects are present, the one that di‡ers from the rest is most likely to be remembered.

Tesler's Law

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

Doherty Threshold

Productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (<400 ms) that ensures that neither has to wait on the other.