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Elements of UX: Hicks Law

Sunday, September 7, 2014 By John Garner

Elements of User Experience series:
“Hicks Law”

Summary

“Hicks Law: the time required to make a decision increases, with the additional number of alternatives you are presented with”

Principal

The principle is: a) you are presented with a task / goal / issue, b) you analyse the situation, judge your options to achieve the given task c) you make a decision / choose an option d) you apply / execute your decision.
In this context Hick’s law predicts (algorithmically) that the more alternatives you provide users with the harder you are making things for them. You should aim at presenting users with only the options they require to achieve the task.

Context in UX

In a moderately complex to simple situation, like with a website design, Hick’s law can be an interesting principle to check. Do you really need all that content / all those options / all those images to help the user achieve their goal? As explained in further detail by Smashingmagazine,  it usually makes sense to “take a step back” and think of your project in general rather than applying this principle religiously to each sub part and element of the overall structure one by one. Consider the user journey, the objectives and via testing if necessary clarify that certain elements are not superfluous.

Hick's Law

Hick’s Law

Filed Under: News, User Experience Tagged With: Digital Projects, Elements of User Experience, Hicks Law, Mind, Psychology, UX

Would you be honest?

Friday, April 8, 2011 By John Garner

Nice little experiment from Honest Tea. If you came across a store where you were expected to be honest, and pay a dollar a bottle, would it work in your town or country?

Filed Under: Advertising, Business, Event, Marketing, Society, User Experience Tagged With: Advertising, Business, Event, linkedin, Marketing, Society, User Experience

A musical fork: EaTheremin

Saturday, March 19, 2011 By John Garner

Using the body as a conductor and part of the overall circuit to create sounds, different types of food create different sounds!
Via http://www.diginfo.tv/

Filed Under: Design, Experimental, Gadget, Tech, User Experience Tagged With: Design, Experimental, Gadget, linkedin, Tech

Kinect hack to manage home lighting system

Friday, March 11, 2011 By John Garner

No I’m not obsessed with the Xbox, I don’t even have one, but this is pretty cool, where you can see that the Kinect (with major hacking and programming) is used to manage the whole lighting system within the flat…

Simple really, lol 😉

Filed Under: Code, Design, Experimental, Gadget, linkedin, Software, Tech, User Experience Tagged With: Code, Design, Experimental, Gadget, linkedin, Software, Tech, User Experience

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