ARTICLE SUMMARY: As you go through life what’s some of the things you notice the most. In emergencies it’s large red buttons, handicap doorways have big square pads to push to open doors automatically for people in wheelchairs and so on. It’s all based on a well-researched study called Fitt’s Law.
.”SIZE DOES MATTER: FITT’S LAW APPLIED TO DESIGN” is a look into the research behind Paul Fitt and his development of Fitt’s Law in 1954 and how it’s applied to UX design today. Some of the design features influenced by Fitt’s Law today are
- Pocket’s sign up button
- Desktop’s pop-up menus
- Pepper Content’s log-in button
When designing with Fitt’s Law in mind there are a few things that designers need to keep in mind
- Fitt’s Law has diminishing returns, the more you apply the principle in your work may not result in the same results of discoverability.
- The elements’ placement and size should work well with the visual hierarchy and not interfere with the balance of the page.
- For Fitt’s law to work at its best, it should be complemented with other principles and laws of UX (law of proximity, visual hierarchy, and more such concepts).
In conclusion this concept was developed to explain the relationship between different variables in the visual field of a human. The more of a size advantage provided to a certain element will generally give it a higher order of focus from the user’s perspective, but this is most definitely not a cure-all for discoverability in a product.
This is a great read for all designers, let us know what you think in the comments.
