1. 5 Laws
for
a User Experience Designer
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

2. Fitts’ Law
Hick’s Law
80/20 Rule
The Gestalt Principles
Mental Model
Proximity
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

3. Fitts’ Law
Fitts' law (often cited as Fitts's law) is a model of human movement
primarily used in human–computer interaction and ergonomics that
predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a
function of the distance to the target and the size of the target.
Fitts's law is used to model the act of pointing, either by physically
touching an object with a hand or finger, or virtually, by pointing to
an object on a computer monitor using a pointing device. It was
proposed by Paul Fitts in 1954.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

4. Hick’s Law
Hick's Law, named after British psychologist William Edmund Hick, or
the Hick–Hyman Law (for Ray Hyman), describes the time it takes for
a person to make a decision as a result of the possible choices he or
she has.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

5. 80/20 Rule or The Pareto Principle
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital
few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events,
roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

6. The Gestalt
Principles
Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to
theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in
the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to
organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain
principles are applied.
source:
http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Uses_in_human.E2.80.93computer_interaction
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

7. Mental Model
A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process
about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of
the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and
a person's intuitive perception about his or her own acts and their
consequences. Mental models can help shape behavior and set an
approach to solving problems (akin to a personal algorithm) and
doing tasks.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_model
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

8. Proximity
The principle of proximity calls for related items to be grouped
visually, creating less clutter and making for a more organized layout.
Items unrelated to each other should be placed further apart, to
emphasize their lack of relationship.
source:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/the-principle-of-proximity-in-web-design/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/04/26/proximity-in-design-why-i-can-t-use-my-car-s-a-c/
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/

9. Thank You
Sunil Shrivastav
User Experience Designer
sunilshrivastav@gmail.com
Sunil Shrivastav | http://www.designindna.com/