Hick–Hyman Law and Design

Psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman define “the time it takes for a person to make a decision as a result of the possible choices he or she has” in the Hick–Hyman Law.That is, increasing the number of choices will increase the decision time logarithmically. This means that people subdivide their total collection of choices into categories, eliminating … Read more

Fitts’s Law and Design

In 1954, Paul Fitts developed a model of human movement, Fitts’s law, based on rapid, aimed movement. Fitts’s model predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. This law is used to model the act of … Read more

Perceived Affordance and Four Principles of Screen Interface Design

Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term “Affordance” in his 1977 article “The Theory of Affordances” and elaborated on it further in his 1979 book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Gibson defined affordances as all “action possibilities” latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them, but … Read more

The Whole is Other Than the Sum of the Parts: Principles of Gestalt Perception

Over the years, I have seen different design principles come into play at design reviews. One of the most frequent and important design principles has been gestalt perception. Around the beginning of the 20th century, Gestalt theorists were intrigued by the way our mind perceives the whole out of incomplete elements.  Gestaltists believed that context … Read more

Finally, a body of knowledge guide for Product Management and Marketing!

The Standard for Product Management and Marketing is Here! The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge (ProdBOK) is a comprehensive, easy to read standard for product management profession. The ProdBOK is an industry-wide effort to standardize the practice of product management sponsored by the Association of International Product Management and Marketing (AIPMM). … Read more