Jakob's Law in UX design

Table of Contents

1. Who is Jakob Nielsen
2. What is Jakob's Law
3. Why use Jakob's Law
4. Conclusion

Who is Jakob Nielsen

Jakob's Law is named after Jakob Nielsen,a Danish human-computer interaction researcher, web usability consultant and the co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group. Nicknamed "guru of Web page usability" by the New York Times and "king of usability" by Internet Magazine, he is the true UX whisperer.

What is Jakob's Law

Jakob's Law states that "Users spend most of their time on other websites than on your website". This can be interpreted to mean when a user visits your website they would expect it to operate and feel like websites they are already familiar with, this way a user can spend more time browsing your products and services rather than having to figure out how your site works (e.g., where is the button to take me to the product page? or how do I add items to cart?).

Why use Jakob's Law

In this fast paced world we live in people dont have the patience to try new things on a whim, so your site can lead to frustration, in this case the user would just leave and find another site with an already familiar user experience(UX). Imagine you have visited five ecommerce websites and so far you have had no trouble signing up due to one reason, the sign up button was located the same place on every website, let say in the nav-bar to the top right.

<nav>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="">Sign Up</a></li>
        <li><a href="">Log in</a></li>
    </ul>
</nav>

but on the sixth website it is not the same, the button is somewhere at the bottom of the page orin the middle of a paragraph page with "special text" making it unreadable. You can see how this would lead to a bad user experience as you are not familiar with having to search for the sign up button, you would prefer to search the website for the products it offers.

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Magnam dicta autem assumenda tempora voluptas beatae nihil omnis cumque perspiciatis odit, ipsam amet minus a suscipit illum. Molestias voluptates odio hic!
Eligendi, ipsa amet fugit laudantium animi accusantium, itaque minima recusandae non rem officia. Sit quia veniam eveniet eaque odit quis voluptates. <a href ="">Sign Up</a> inventore error voluptatem blanditiis molestiae necessitatibus, officiis, cum corporis.
Ducimus est quisquam ex beatae nemo qui exercitationem, at iste illo rem quam optio corporis eveniet impedit adipisci laborum nulla possimus asperiores laboriosam vero rerum! Aperiam, sequi? Sunt, doloremque blanditiis!</p>

Conclusion

Make familiar user experiences so as to avoid frustrated users. Everyone is happy this way. You get users that spend time browsing your products and services, and users get to spend time doing what they intended to do when they visited your site, this is my take on Jakob's Law.

With this article at OpenGenus, you must have the complete idea of Jakob's Law in UX Design.