EBlog
Are you breaking Fitts’ Law?
August 28, 2006 | Posted by: Marty
Fitts law is a mathematical model which predicts how long it will take to point from one object to another as defined by target size and distance between. Originally researched for avation instrumentation, its principles has become a foundation of modern user interface design, as its findings directly correlate to using a mouse as an input mechanism.
We encounter Fitts’ Law everyday when using our computers, selecting icons, menus, etc.
Check out a really in-depth discussion of Office 07’s new Ribbon User Interface and how Fitts Law came into play when completing the UI.
Tags for this post:
design usability user centered design ui
Categorized in: Design, Technology
12120 Sunset Hills Road
Comments
by Nicholas
The biggest deal about Microsoft adopting such a radical UI for Office 2007 is, well, just that. That they took a product that generates many tens of millions (hundreds?) of dollars for them and completely rethought the interface. Hell, not even just the interface, the interface model!
Cheers to them for this and their attention to detail on things like Fitts Law.