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Better Design with UX Rules, and Psychological Research You Need to Know
I searched for must-read books on UX. There was a book I always put off: Laws of UX. I finally read it and realized that it is linked to other UX books. You can think of this article as a compilation of this book. Let’s not think about UX only for platforms such as web and mobile, and focus on the concept of ‘product’.
Focus on purpose
When users own a product, they want it to fulfill its function. So they simply want the product to do its core function. Therefore, eliminate extra processes that will tire the user. Briefly; do not distract the user.
Common habits
People’s reactions to a new product are shaped by the user habits they learned in the past. For example, when they browse a website, they expect it to be similar to the sites they have visited before. In a car, they expect some control buttons to be in similar positions to other cars. Otherwise, it would be difficult as a user to re-learn each car and understand how each site works.
Mental Model
In real life, we have already learned what objects/elements do. We’re going to use a mental model here. Why do we need to learn something new in our virtual designs? We should bring real-life designs to virtual designs as we are used to. In the Laws of UX book, this example is explained with the following image;
Also, as an example, Apple recommends using mental models when designing iOS app icons. On your phone, you see a real file figure in the ‘Files’ app icon and a gear figure in the ‘Settings’ app icon. These are examples of mental models, easy to understand. And as you can see, it’s simple and predictable.
What about boring?
Let’s take a look at the website example: Wouldn’t they all look alike and boring if every website uses the same methods? At this point, it is…
