Jakob’s law in UX design
The importance of this rule in the UX world
Users spend more time on other websites than on your website. This is what Jakob’s Law is stating. To keep it simple, it means that the users prefer that your site works the same as all the other sites they already know. They that the important common patterns on your website functions familiar to other websites.
If a user gets cumulative experience of visiting several websites, then they get knowledge of how a website works. When they visit your site, they expect that it works the same way. User get confused if it works differently. They want to be immediately productive instead of first needing to learn and understand how a website works.
In the world of UX we want to make the life of our users easier instead of making them confused. That is why it is important that sites show familiair patterns.
The law doesn’t state that all the websites and experiences should be identical. There are features that has to be similar. An example is the search button/option on a webpage. Most websites you visit have this feature on the top-right hand corner or it is placed on the top middle. If this is located on the left-hand corner or somewhere down your site, then users get confused as they are not used to it. So, it is important to keep this Law in mind while you are working on a project.
Jakob’s Law is all about building familiarity!
