Usability basic: Fitt’s Law

February 22, 2007 · Posted in Uncategorized 

Howdy IIA readers. This is the first guest post from iQ Content. We’re a web usability and design consultancy based in Dublin. For the next couple weeks we’ll be posting about usability and accessibility. Our blog is a group effort, and this guest blogging will be, too. So you’ll be hearing from me (Brian), Laurence (our blogging champ) and hopefully a few others.

If you find any of this interesting, have a gawk at our regular blog — iqcontent.com/blog.

This first post is about a nice little tutorial on Fitt’s Law. If you haven’t heard it before, Fitt’s Law was established back in 1954, and focuses on the speed of clicking onscreen elements. Anyone in web design should be at least superficially familiar with this law.

The tutorial actually includes interactive “experiments” where you get to click on a bunch of circles. True, clicking on circles really loses its appeal quickly, even immediately. But if you stick with it a couple minutes, you get to actually experience what Fitt’s law describes. If you’re a bit impatient, just click ahead and read about what you were supposed to experience.

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I think the tutorial is nice because by experiencing it, you’re more likely to actually remember it, and because it points out some insights I hadn’t realised before. Like why the Mac menu bars are always at the top of the screen, regardless of whether the application window is full screen.

fitts law mac2.JPG

And though the basics of Fitt’s Law seems plainly obvious, the tutorial also points out where Fitt’s Law is actually counter-intuitive: “The opposite corner of the screen may be easier to target than a spot three pixels away!”

So if you’re looking for a 5 or 10 minute diversion, it’s worth a gander.

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