I took a look back into user experience design before touching on sustainability. This included researching the laws of UX, the double diamond theory, the IDEO design kit and other relevant material.

The Laws of UX

Laws of UX is a collection of best practices that designers can consider when building user interfaces.

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Jakob’s Law

<aside> ❔ The principle of usability described by Jakob Nielsen that recommends the use of familiar patterns in design in order to facilitate user experience.

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Jakob’s Law is all about building familiarity. It is basically saying that users prefer to use things that work the same as things they already know.

The law doesn’t state that all the websites and experiences should be identical however there are features that have to be similar. For example, the search button/option on a webpage. This feature is typically displayed in the top-right hand corner or it is placed on the top middle. If this is located on the left-hand corner or somewhere down your site, then users get confused as they are not used to it.

Key Takeaways:

• Users will transfer expectations they’ve built around one familiar product to another than appears similar
• By leveraging existing mental models, we can create superior user experiences in which the users can focus on their tasks rather than on learning new models
• When making changes, minimise discord by empowering users to continue using a familiar version for a limited time

Law of Similarity

<aside> ❔ The human eye tends to perceive similar elements in a design as a complete picture, shape, or group, even if those elements are seperated.

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Objects that are visually similar in size, shape and / or colour will be visually grouped together, even if those objects are not near each other. Some sites use the same colour for buttons and text links. This creates a relationship between these objects and teaches the user to associate this colour with interactivity.