Why digital things work. Or don't.
Not a glossary, but connections explained: laws from psychology, design and computer science, applied to websites, products and processes, always with a concrete solution at the end.
The UX Lexicon
Laws and effects from psychology, design and computer science, explained clearly and applied to digital projects. Alphabetically, like a lexicon.
View all fundamentals →- Aesthetic-Usability Effect: Why beautiful design seems easier to use
- Beautiful interfaces seem simpler, even when they are not. What the Aesthetic-Usability Effect means for web design and where it misleads.
- Core Web Vitals: What Google Measures on Your Website and Why It Costs Revenue
- Core Web Vitals are Google's yardstick for loading speed, responsiveness, and stability of a website. What LCP, INP, and CLS mean, which thresholds apply, and how to improve the scores concretely.
- Doherty Threshold: Why everything feels fluid under 400 milliseconds
- From around 400 milliseconds of waiting, flow breaks. What the Doherty Threshold reveals about fast websites and good feedback.
- Eugene Schwartz's 5 Levels of Awareness: Why Nobody Buys Before They're Ready
- Eugene Schwartz's five levels of awareness explain why the same copy works on one visitor and fails on the next. Includes a mapping table and practical steps for websites.
- Fitts' Law: Why important buttons need to be big and close
- The bigger and closer a target, the faster you hit it. Fitts' Law explains why small, distant buttons cost clicks.
- Hick's Law: Why Every Extra Option Slows Down Your Website
- The more options you give visitors, the longer they take to decide, and the more often they decide not to decide at all. Hick's Law explains the connection, and we show what to do about it.
- Jakob's Law: Why users expect familiar patterns
- Your visitors know hundreds of other websites. Jakob's Law explains why familiar patterns are understood faster than original ones.
- Miller's Law: 7 ± 2, chunking and good menu structures
- The famous 7 ± 2 is often misquoted. What Miller's Law really says and how to structure content so it sticks.
- Solomon's Paradox: Why You Decide More Wisely for Others Than for Yourself
- Solomon's Paradox explains why we judge other people's problems more wisely than our own. With the Grossmann and Kross study, the principle of self-distancing, and concrete rules for your website.
- Technical Debt: Why Quickly Built Websites Cost Twice as Much Later
- Technical debt arises when shortcuts taken today cost interest tomorrow. Where the term comes from, what types exist, and how to tell when a rebuild is cheaper than repairs.
- The Paradox of Choice: Why More Options on Your Website Mean Less Revenue
- The paradox of choice explains why visitors faced with too many options decide nothing at all. With the jam experiment, the limits of the effect, and concrete rules for navigation, pricing pages, and forms.
- The Peak-End Rule: What Visitors Really Remember About Your Website
- The peak-end rule explains why people judge experiences by their peak and their ending, not by the average. With Kahneman's experiments and concrete rules for checkout flows, contact forms, and farewell pages.
- Von Restorff Effect: What stands out is remembered
- A red element among grey ones is seen instantly and remembered longer. How the Von Restorff Effect works and why it only works sparingly.
- Zeigarnik Effect: Why unfinished tasks stay on your mind
- Open tasks do not let us go. What is behind the Zeigarnik Effect, how robust it is and how websites can use it fairly.
Practical article
Concrete problems from real projects, analyzed and answered with an actionable solution. Plus our own principles from day-to-day work.
Maluure Principle: Never Automate a Bad Process
Automation makes good workflows faster and bad workflows faster at being bad. Our first Maluure principle explains why order matters and how to tell if a process is ready for automation.
The Homepage That Wants to Say Everything at Once
Many company homepages don't fail because of design, they fail because of the message: they try to tell every visitor everything. Why that doesn't work, and how to arrive at a clear core message.
Topic clusters
Laws and effects from psychology and design that explain why interfaces work or fail.
Software development principles, from KISS to technical debt, and what they mean for digital projects.
Laws and rules about work, time and processes, and when automation truly pays off.
Cognitive biases and effects that shape the decisions of users and teams.
Principles from social proof to positioning, and how they work in websites and campaigns.