What is Jakob's Law and its practical applications in UX?
The Law of User Experience is a set of fundamental principles that guide the design and development of digital products to ensure a better user experience.
These principles are based on the user's needs, expectations, and behaviours and aim to create interfaces that are intuitive, easy to use, and efficient.
In this post, we will explore one of the primary laws of user experience - Jakob’s Law and how it can be applied to create interfaces that meet the user's needs and expectations.
Jakob’s Law
Jakob's Law is a fundamental principle of user experience design that states that
“Users spend most of their time on other sites and apps, and therefore, they expect your site or app to work the same way. “
This means that users expect consistency in the design and functionality of digital products.
Jakob's Law was introduced by Jakob Nielsen, a user experience researcher, and consultant. He observed that users have a mental model of how things should work based on their previous experiences with other websites and apps. Therefore, if your digital product deviates from their expectations, it can cause confusion and frustration.
The application of Jakob's Law in user experience design is to design interfaces that are intuitive and familiar to users. This means using standard design patterns and conventions that users are familiar with, such as the navigation menu at the top of the page or the search bar in the header.
Jokobs' Law and User Experience
This is because most of the times humans' muscle memory have a common pattern about websites if they have used multiple sites. And if they come across your site they expect a similar working pattern on your site as well.
If your site has a different user interface or a unique design pattern that they are not very familiar with, users either tend to bounce off from your site or will spend much of their time trying to figure out the new feature and will end up frustrated.
Real-Life Examples
The most common real-life example of Jakob's law is online shopping sites. Let's take the example of the two popular online shopping platforms: Flipkart and Amazon.
From the images below you can notice that the highlighted portions of the images are similar and are placed at the same locations. Though the platforms are similar and have different branding and designs, there still lies a lot of commonalities between them.
This is because, over repeated usage, our brains tend to fix the positions of certain objects based on our observations and learning. When it finds a similar object anytime in the future, it will tend to recollect any of the previous incidents or memories it had about relevant objects and will try to apply those principles to it.
That is why it is essential to practice and go with what works and has worked best for other similar websites.
Practical Applications of Jakob's Law:
1. Consistent Navigation
Users expect to find the navigation menu at the top of the page. They expect to navigate through the site or app using categories and subcategories. Therefore, it is essential to follow these conventions to provide a consistent user experience.
2. Familiar Interactions
Users are familiar with certain interactions, such as scrolling, clicking, and dragging. Therefore, it is important to design interfaces that work the same way as other websites and apps to avoid confusion.
3. Standard Design Patterns
Users are familiar with standard design patterns, such as the use of icons and buttons. Therefore, it is important to use these patterns consistently to provide a familiar user experience.
4. Clear and Concise Language
Users expect clear and concise language that is easy to understand. Therefore, it is important to avoid jargon and use language that is familiar to the target audience.
Jakob's Law is a critical principle of user experience design that emphasizes the importance of consistency in design and functionality. By applying Jakob's Law, designers can create interfaces that are intuitive and familiar to users, resulting in a better user experience.
