
Laws of Locality: Where in your UI you should put certain controls - feross
https://learnui.design/blog/the-3-laws-of-locality.html
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mcphage
The "switch app" and "switch profile" buttons being right next to each other
in Gmail is a common annoyance for me. I frequently click the wrong one. They
do very different, unrelated things—they should be in different places.
Similar things should be together, unrelated things should be apart.

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zapzupnz
Indeed. Office 365 has them on different sides, and iCloud requires going to
its home screen to view account settings.

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sandgraham
tldr

1\. Put an action near/inside of the object it affects.

2\. If an action affects multiple objects, place action above those objects.

3\. If you can't do 1 or 2, compensate by making the action more noticeable.

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gcatalfamo
Thank you. This is the reason I can’t start to write. I love brevity and
clarity.

Prolonged blog posts where the crucial information can be made up in 2-3 lines
is now the norm and I can’t for the life of me adapt to this style of writing.

I would love to have a tldr; or executive summary (I know it has a different
meaning, but you get the point) up on top and then the rest of the article,
for those who are now intrigued to read more, available to read.

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ungzd
> If a control affects change across an entire area, put it above that area

If I select multiple items, usually I do it from top to bottom (and from left
to right). So I end up at the bottom of UI. And to run action I have to go
back to the top? It's even worse if scrolling is involved.

And using gmail, which has pretty bad UI, as example?

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zapzupnz
I believe the idea is that the UI that applies to an entire area stays at the
top of the screen, like a toolbar. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you scroll
from top to bottom, you will still see the toolbar (or perhaps a minimalist
version of it to save space).

