

Fitts' Law: A Usability Quiz - joshwa
http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html

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tipjoy
Putting the menus either at the top or the left (or right or bottom) of a
browser window won't do a thing to address the issue here, unless the user
always maximizes their browser to fill their screen. In that case, flush left
or right would be good from a Fitts' point of view. But most users don't use
their browser this way.

You could consider enlarging your links and/or buttons so the hit space is
larger. You could add a buffer zone around the hit space so if the user gets
'close enough' then that is equivalent to hitting the target. Space your hit
spaces far enough apart so that users don't hit incorrectly. Run usability
tests and time your users on common tasks, then iterate your design.

An important aspect of Fitts' law is minimizing the amount of movement the
user has to do to get to the place they need to go to complete the next action
in their task flow. Therefore you can cluster similar actions together so that
the user doesn't have to move around the screen a lot to accomplish a given
task.

An interesting part of Bruce's post was his mention of circular menus. Fitts'
law tells us they'd be easier to use than linear menus. But usability, like so
much else in life, is not so cut and dry. I would predict that the increased
cognitive load that the user experienced when they saw a circular list of
options rather than a linear one would slow them down so much as to outweigh
the benefits of not having to move as much to get to their desired action. All
things equal, circular menus may be more efficient than linear ones. However
unless the whole world changes to circular menus - or at least, one whole
computer environment, applications and OS included - introducing this in your
application would slow your users down.

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joshwa
Another something to consider-- after your user has clicked a link, where will
his/her mouse be on the page that loads next?

This comes into play particularly on sites that have a lot of repetitive
actions-- e.g. hotornot. If I'm voting again and again, I want the vote
buttons to stay in the same position for _every_ page load, so I don't have to
hunt for it each time. That way I can click "no, no, no, yes, no" without any
thought or mouse movement.

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myoung8
wow. everyone should read this. i had one of those "holy crap i just learned
something new and interesting" moments. what it has to say will probably
surprise most of you.

my only question is, what's the best practice for designing websites using
Fitt's Law?

We can't use the upper or lower screen edges because of the OS's menu bars and
it seems like it would look odd to have the menu aligned flush with the left
side of the screen...

Thoughts?

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webwright
Urm-- lots of web sites have left aligned nav... lefthand nav was fairly
dominant in the early web-- upper nav seems to be all the rage nowadays.

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myoung8
yeah, but how many are aligned flush with the side of the screen? it can't
even be one pixel away for it to be super-usable.

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DougBTX
And you have to set body {border: 0} or some such or they'll just click on the
browser chrome. We had complaints from users when we broke this in our app :-)

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rms
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts'_law>

Some great background here... apparently Fitts' Law is why Xerox introduced
the mouse in the first place.

