Jakob’s law
People spend most of their time on other sites, so they expect yours to work the same way as the ones they already know.
What problem it addresses
Explains why an original interface can confuse: people arrive with habits learned on other sites and apply them without thinking.
An example
Getting back to the homepage from an online store.
There is nothing new to learn: people apply what they already know from other sites.
Why it happens
We spend almost all our time on sites that are not yours.
That is where we learn where things usually are and how they work.
When we reach yours, we look for the same things in the same place.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Put things where people already look for them, like search or the cart at the top.
Avoid
Reinventing familiar controls, like scrolling or the menu, just to look different.
Don’t fall for it
Following conventions does not forbid innovation: change something familiar only if the improvement outweighs the cost of learning it.
6 times
What the research says
In a study with 50 people on 14 online fashion stores, those using a site with a centered logo were 6 times as likely to fail to get back to the homepage in one click as with the logo on the left (Whitenton, 2016).
Single study. It is a single study, small and from a single sector. The law itself sums up Nielsen’s experience in usability testing: it did not come from an experiment.
Connections
Used in
Authors and works
- 2000
Jakob Nielsen
Put forward the idea in his column “End of Web Design”, as he later explained himself.
- 2016
Kathryn Whitenton
Measured how hard it is to get back to the homepage when the logo is not where people expect it.
- 2017
Jakob Nielsen
Presented it under the name “Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience”.
- 2020
Jon Yablonski
Gathered it with other user experience laws in the book Laws of UX.
Sources
Original sources
- Nielsen, J. (2000, July 23). End of web design. Alertbox. Nielsen Norman Group. View source: Nielsen, J. (2000, July 23)
- Nielsen, J. (2017, August 18). Jakob's law of Internet user experience [video]. Nielsen Norman Group. View source: Nielsen, J. (2017, August 18)
- Whitenton, K. (2016, July 10). Centered logos hurt website navigation. Nielsen Norman Group. View source: Whitenton, K. (2016, July 10)
Secondary sources
- Nielsen, J. (2023, September 8). Jakob's law of the Internet user experience. Jakob Nielsen on UX (Substack). View source: Nielsen, J. (2023, September 8)
- Yablonski, J. (2020). Laws of UX: Using psychology to design better products & services. O'Reilly Media. View source: Yablonski, J. (2020)
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