Laws of UX by Jon Yablonski Flashcards

A collection of flashcards covering the key psychological principles, laws, and design concepts discussed in Jon Yablonski's 'Laws of UX.'

Jakob’s Law

A design principle stating that 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.

Mental Model

What we think we know about a system, especially about how it works; users apply knowledge from past experiences when interacting with something new.

Mental Model Discordance

A problem that occurs when a familiar product is suddenly changed, causing a misalignment between the design and the user's expectations, such as the 2018 Snapchat redesign.

Fitts’s Law

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

Index of Difficulty (ID)

A metric used in Fitts’s Law to quantify the difficulty of a target selection task, calculated as $ID = \text{log}_2 \frac{2D}{W}$.

Hick’s Law

A law stating that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available, defined by the formula $RT = a + b \text{log}_2(n)$.

Cognitive Load

The amount of mental resources and processing power needed to understand and interact with an interface.

Card Sorting

A research method used to identify users' expectations for information architecture by having participants organize topics into groups that make sense to them.

Miller’s Law

The observation that the average person can keep only $7 \text{ (± 2)}$ items in their working memory.

Chunking

The process of organizing information into familiar, grouped units to help the human short-term memory retain information more effectively.

Postel’s Law

Also known as the Robustness Principle, it states: 'Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.'

Progressive Enhancement

A web design strategy that focuses on core content first for all users and gradually layers styling and interaction as browser feature support is detected.

Peak–End Rule

A psychological heuristic stating that people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum of the experience.

Cognitive Biases

Systematic errors of thinking or rationality in judgment that influence perception and decision-making by acting as mental shortcuts.

Aesthetic–Usability Effect

A phenomenon where users perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.

Automatic Cognitive Processing

An involuntary mode of thinking (System 1) that allows humans to form opinions based on first impressions and past experiences within milliseconds.

von Restorff Effect

Also known as the Isolation Effect, it states that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.

Banner Blindness

A selective attention behavior where users ignore elements they perceive to be advertisements.

Tesler’s Law

Also known as the Law of Conservation of Complexity, it states that for any system there is a certain amount of complexity that cannot be reduced and must be handled by either the system or the user.

Doherty Threshold

The observation that productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace less than ($<400\,\text{ms}$) that ensures neither has to wait on the other.

Skeleton Screen

A technique used to improve perceived performance by instantly displaying placeholder blocks while actual content is loading.

Optimistic UI

A design pattern that optimistically provides immediate feedback that an action (like posting a comment) was successful while it is still being processed in the background.

Operant Conditioning

A process of behavior modification studied by B. F. Skinner where behaviors are learned through associations with positive or negative reinforcements.

Intermittent Variable Rewards

A reinforcement schedule where rewards are given in unpredictable patterns, which is the most effective way to shape impulsive, repeated behavior.

Dark Patterns

Deceptive interface designs used to influence user behavior into performing actions they did not intend to, such as the scarcity pattern used to indicate limited stock.