Laws of UX

These are nice (and ofc not set in stone).

Me not being a "traditional or natural" designer, I like to have a set of best practises recipes or laws. These laws might be difficult to constantly hold in your head. I think this is a PERFECT starting point for AI to "bulk check" some screens.

Honestly I would map it to a short-cut, like I map "format source code" to a shortcut. If you building business software a set of laws or (shortcut mapped to them) can be really useful as a sanity check.

In fact I just did that:

- Downloaded the UX Laws as a screenshot

- Downloaded a screenshot of a dashboard (a userform might have worked better)

- Asked ChatGPT and Claude to do a review with those laws in mind and then to create a new mockup based on those recommendations

Project 1: CMMS Dashboard For Maintenance (fast food chain)

- Dashboard old: https://imgur.com/a/R3wrMpr

- Dashboard new (Claude): https://imgur.com/a/cYq4gE8

Project 2: https://swellslots.com (Surf Forecast App, arcade look and feel)

- Forecast old: https://imgur.com/a/W3daZrP

- Forecast new: https://imgur.com/a/kNi2Nvg

This one pops up a lot - I love the design and poster aspect. I am always amazed how many of these 'Laws' trace back to Nielsen Norman Group data and research over the years. Many UX trends are even named after them! Jakobs law... Norman Door. UX professionals are being greatly influenced by this focused observer set. Maybe just my opinion, but modern UX and HCI theory is being held back day by day due to a set of gentle rules. Specifically, 'Rules' from exposed patterns across user experiences in Broadcast and other non-interactive media.

I liked the earlier page in this series, but this one feels kind of half-assed. Consider many of the first entries, like this one:

"Cognitive Bias - A systematic error of thinking or rationality in judgment that influence our perception"

That's not a law! It's barely even a useful concept in the form presented here!

Instead of being a useful collection of rules a UI designer/dev can apply, this just feels like the author picked some terms, looked up their definition in the dictionary, and threw it all together so he could sell posters.

Law #0: don't reflowb or otherwise move around the UI element I'm going to click on.

Maybe add "stability"? Don't constantly change things for change's sake or to follow a new fad.

Personally I feel that good UX and well designed platforms are going to be key to separate startups from the vibe coded app.

Nothing wrong with using Claude Code or Loveable but I am yet to see something truly beautiful and unique from them yet.

Where's the option to switch to a two-pane layout so I can scroll through the rules without losing the one i'm reading ?

Thanks for sharing this. After nearly a decade of being "full stack", I've only now been diving more and more into UI and have barely touched the surface of UX.

Slightly off-topic, but are there any resources for common UI designs/patterns especially for mobile/webapps? e.g. hamburger menus, toast notifications, etc. I've been looking for a site that's organized, comprehensive and with visual examples.

Maybe <400ms is an inflection point but it sure isn’t optimal.

“Productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at a pace (<400ms)”

Bad UX is anything that causes user frustration. However, engineers are taught that expressing frustration is uncivil.