Read · October 2026
The Laws of UI/UX: 5 Simple Rules Behind Every Good Design
Five design laws, explained in plain words with real screens, so you can see why good interfaces feel easy.
The Laws of UI/UX: 5 Simple Rules Behind Every Good Design
This article explores five fundamental principles of user interface and user experience design: Hick’s Law, Fitts’s Law, Jakob’s Law, Miller’s Law, and the Law of Proximity — with simple before-and-after UI examples.
Good design isn’t guesswork. It follows a few simple, proven rules about how people see, decide, and click.
Ever opened an app and just known what to do? That’s not luck. It’s design built around how people think and behave. Here are five principles that help make digital experiences easier to understand and use.
1. Hick’s Law: Fewer Choices, Faster Decisions
The more options you present, the longer users may take to make a decision.
- Before: A menu with 15 unrelated items competing for attention.
- After: Four clearly organized groups that help users find what they need.
The goal is to reduce unnecessary complexity and make choices easier to evaluate.
If everything is important, nothing is.
2. Fitts’s Law: Make Important Actions Easy to Reach
The larger a target is and the closer it is to the user, the easier it generally is to interact with.
- Before: Tiny buttons placed in distant corners of the screen.
- After: Clearly visible, appropriately sized actions positioned where users can easily reach them.
On mobile devices, comfortable touch targets and thoughtful placement can make the experience faster and less frustrating.
Design takeaway: Make important actions easy to find, reach, and use.
3. Jakob’s Law: Don’t Reinvent What People Already Know
Users spend much of their time interacting with other websites and applications. They bring those familiar expectations to your product.
- Before: An unconventional navigation system that forces users to learn unfamiliar patterns.
- After: Recognizable conventions, such as a clickable logo that returns to the homepage and a familiar shopping-cart icon.
Familiar patterns reduce the effort required to understand an interface.
Innovation is valuable when it improves the experience, not when it adds unnecessary confusion.
4. Miller’s Law: Don’t Overload Memory
People have limited working-memory capacity. Interfaces become harder to use when they require users to remember too much information at once.
- Before: A long, unstructured form or a continuous list of information.
- After: Related fields grouped into sections, with long content divided into manageable chunks.
For example, displaying a phone number in recognizable groups makes it easier to scan than presenting it as one uninterrupted string.
Design takeaway: Organize information so users can process it without unnecessary mental effort.
5. Law of Proximity: Close Things Feel Related
Elements placed near one another are generally perceived as belonging together. Spacing helps communicate relationships without requiring extra labels.
- Before: A heading, description, and button scattered across a page with inconsistent spacing.
- After: Related content grouped together with consistent spacing and clear visual hierarchy.
A title placed close to its description, or a button positioned beside its relevant form, helps users understand the relationship between elements.
Good spacing guides the eye without adding clutter.
The Takeaway
Great design isn't about adding more. It's about removing friction so people can accomplish their goals without struggling to understand the interface.
Use these principles to make decisions more straightforward, interactions easier, information more manageable, and layouts more intuitive.
Want to see the examples and screens for each principle?
Read the full article on [Medium]