Jakob’s Law: how did Facebook upset its users?
Are you being too creative for your users? — Jakob’s Law
We started with a controversial title. Please allow me to make a few more controversial statements. (Yes! You are kind 🙂)
Your creativity could ruin the sweet experience of users. Your creativity could make them quit!
This could be hard to believe for many of you. Some must be creating designs already wearing the creative hat. And you are being creative because it’s your job to be creative. You are born to be creative.
Isn’t creativity known to solve problems? Then how on this earth is it possible that your creativity could backfire?
Just spend a few moments with me and read through the article before cursing me. And if you don’t agree with me, you can come up with the most creative abuse and ruin my experience. 😅
What is Jakob’s Law?
You must have come across the name Donald Norman, the author of ‘The Design of Everyday Thing’. Jakob Nielsen is not just a friend to him and also his partner in the famous NN group. One of the N here is for Nielsen.
He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use. These are good credentials for why you should listen to him
And Jakob’s Law is named after Jakon Nielsen.
Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know — Jakob’s Law
Unless you are re-inventing the wheel, design for patterns for which users are accustomed. Don’t lose your patience, just a few more lines and this would start making the most sense.
Heard of Familiarity and Mental Models?
Humans are strange creatures. As curious as they are to explore new things, they find a lot of comfort with familiar things. Sometimes, they demand this comfort so much that they would boycott you if you tried to change anything. And they would make their curse go viral. (Remember the re-design of Facebook or Snapchat logo?)
You are probably a good driver and you are proud of your driving skills. What if a new supercar is launched but with the inter-changed position of accelerometer and brake pedals?
Would you be able to drive it? Or would you just bash it right on some wall?
Look at these jars below. How would you open the lid?
Yes! You would turn it anti-clockwise. Nothing new! What if this wasn’t the case and instead of opening it, you are tightening it?
What if Apple computers desire to be the most creative company and come up with an idea of a new keyboard with keys in alphabetical order? Would you be comfortable typing on it?
Right from our birth, we started learning things quickly and we programmed ourselves for the environment around us. We expect the environment and its elements to function in a certain way and we react to them without feeling odd.
This model in our head for how things work is called a mental model. And anything that aligns with our mental model makes us feel safe and comfortable. That’s why a big yes to familiarity.
What’s too Creative?
All of us want to provide the best possible experience for our customers and we often come up with innovative solutions to solve customer problems.
Sometimes, instead of focusing on their problems, we focus on our own problem of being creative and come up with designs that are extremely creative for the consumers.
Oh! I have come up with a stunning idea. And this would be the fanciest thing this world has ever seen.
Don’t fall for the above statement. Be wise to execute them. Yes! Exceptions do exist. If your customers expect you to create such designs, they won’t shout. In the case of games or puzzles, probably they would appreciate it.
But otherwise, they don’t have these expectations. Nielsen talked about e-commerce products as an example. He mentioned that customers are visiting the website with a goal to complete asap. They would focus on products, services, content, and other offerings. Anything extraordinarily new would make them spend their time on something they don’t want,
One would struggle to find the buy button on Amazon now. For the sake of creativity, one should not change the basic design conventions. These customers spend a lot of time on other websites and they expect others to function in the same way, as per their mental model.
Mental models are just like the law of nature. If you violate them, your consumer might not forgive you.
The back button on the web is very attractive and users love it. Anything odd or unfamiliar, they don’t hesitate to click it. And sometimes, they might leave you forever.
What should we do then?
There is a reason why we study our competitors in the research phase of building products. We want to leverage their strengths and improve on their shortcoming.
There is a reason why we study our customers. We want to understand their mental models and their behavior patterns.
We should get absolutely get creative in finding solutions to their problems, not our problems. Don’t misinterpret the problem and force the creative solution on users.
Youtube made a wise move. Without changing much, it asked it’s users to opt-in or opt-out of new designs. It repeatedly asked users for feedback to improve new designs.
Facebook too has a great design team but still, users resist change and anything that is not familiar to them. Opt-in and Opt-out methodology like Youtube could help your users make wise decisions.
Nielsen isn’t asking you not to be creative. In case you are breaking the boundaries, be cautious enough to test the designs, and match it with the mental models of users.
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UX Crash Course: Chapter 1
