Good design is about predicting human behavior. The human brain seeks patterns and minimizes effort, so users come to your interface with existing psychological expectations.
The "Laws of UX" are a collection of best practices drawn from psychology that help designers create intuitive, low-friction experiences. Understanding how people perceive, process, and react to digital interfaces lets you build something that feels natural to use.
The sections below cover the core principles of modern product design, from how we move our hands to how we store information:
- Fitts’s Law: Optimizing movement and target acquisition.
- Hick’s Law: Reducing decision fatigue.
- Miller’s Law: Managing memory and cognitive load.
- Jakob’s Law: Leveraging familiarity and mental models.
- Gestalt Principles: Organizing visual relationships.
- Aesthetic-Usability Effect: Understanding the effect of Aesthetics on usability
- Doherty Threshold: Maintaining speed and responsiveness to sustain focus.
- Perceived Performance: Making interfaces feel faster through smart design cues.