7 Top Laws of UX That Shapes Intuitive User Interfaces

When designing a product or a website, you must consider how the user will interact with it and whether it will be an enjoyable experience for them.

With decreasing attention span, gaining and retaining user’s attention is more important than ever. So, you’ll need to offer a top-notch user experience, which is more than just UI changes.

The “laws of UX” provide a set of guiding principles that help designers create intuitive, user-centered designs. These laws of UX help tap into fundamental aspects of human behavior that contribute to making digital experiences feel natural and effortless.

Ultimately, you’ll ground your designs with these laws to create a user experience that feels comfortable, effective, and refreshingly easy to use.

Moving on, we’ll explore seven of the most important laws of UX.

Let’s begin!

What Are the Laws of UX?

The laws of UX are a set of psychology-based principles that explain how people perceive, process, and interact with digital interfaces. They were curated by product designer Jon Yablonski in his 2020 book Laws of UX and are documented at lawsofux.com. Across 21 laws, organized into four categories - heuristics, Gestalt principles, cognitive biases, and general principles, they give designers a research-backed reason for the decisions they make. The seven laws below are among the most widely applied, covering cognitive load, memory, and user behavior.

#1. Hick's Law

We all know that users are prone to scrolling through endless options, but they are often unable to make a choice. This is especially true when they are scrolling an eCommerce website to find a product.

That’s Hick’s Law in action—it’s what happens when too many choices stall decision-making.

This UX law conveys that you’ll need to keep response time low.

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But you’ll be unable to do so if more options are offered to users, making them take longer to use. This may often lead to frustration or even abandonment of the task altogether.

Use Hick’s Law as a principle that is helpful in creating navigation menus, forms, and decision-heavy screens where too many options can complicate things.

Characteristics of Hick’s Law in UX

1. Limit choices per screen: Provide fewer options that result in quicker decisions. For example, having five menu items instead of ten can make navigation smoother.
2. Prioritize key actions: Prioritize primary actions and keep them at the forefront as you group secondary options. This will guide users naturally.
3. Use progressive disclosure: Show users only what they need at that moment, keeping additional details hidden until necessary.
4. Leverage visual cues and hierarchy: Blend in the design elements like size, color, or icons since it guides users toward primary actions, reducing cognitive load.
5. Categorize and filter: Group similar options together and provide filters to help users narrow down their choices.

#2. The Peak-End Rule

Think about your favorite movie. Do you remember every single scene?

Probably not.

But you are likely to remember the most intense scene and the ending.

This is what the Peak-End rule suggests — to focus on how people remember experiences and not every detail. It is one of the laws of UX design that requires you to break down how humans perceive an experience into two main parts: the most intense moments (the “peak”) and the ending.

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This means that when people look back on an experience, they remember most of the high points and the ending.

So, when you use the Peak-End rule for the UX, you’d want to pay attention to the highlights of the user journey and ensure that the last steps and peak stages leave a positive impression.

Characteristics of the Peak-End Rule in UX

1. Highlight key moments: Identify high-impact actions, like completing a purchase, and make them memorable for users. It requires adding animations, messages, or visuals.
2. End with a positive experience: Make sure that the final interaction, such as a confirmation message, feels rewarding and complete.
3. Handle errors gracefully: Upon errors, provide helpful guidance to make it a constructive moment rather than a frustrating one.
4. Streamline checkout processes: For eCommerce sites, a smooth checkout experience shows that you have implemented the Peak-End rule.
5. Offer delightful surprises: To enhance the overall experience, introduce unexpected elements of delight, such as personalized messages or animations.

#3. Zeigarnik Effect

When users start a task, their minds tend to hold onto it until it’s complete. That’s the UX law of Zeigarnik Effect at work. It's a principle that shows that people remember incomplete tasks better than those they’ve finished.

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In UX, this can be used to keep users engaged and encourage them to take further actions. By leaving certain elements or steps unfinished, you create a subtle urge for users to return and complete them.

Using the Zeigarnik Effect in UX

1. Progress indicators: Show steps left to complete a task, like a progress bar during sign-up, which nudges users to finish what they’ve started.
2. Encourage return visits: Remind users of unfinished items (like an abandoned cart) to prompt them to complete their actions.
3. Design for curiosity: Offer teasers or previews that hint at more to come, enticing users to click through or explore further.
4. Checklist-style guidance: Break down larger tasks, like onboarding or setup, into steps so users feel motivated to work through each point.

#4. Tesler’s Law (Law of Conservation of Complexity)

Tesler’s Law is about balancing complexity behind the scenes to keep things simple for the user. Every application or interface has inherent complexity, but the goal is not to pass all that onto users.

This requires handling more complex processing on the backend so that users can experience a clean, easy-to-navigate interface. In essence, this law of UX suggests that complexity isn’t something we eliminate but something we manage thoughtfully.

Applying Tesler’s Law in UX:

1. Simplify user flows: Instead of overwhelming users with all the details at once, break down complex processes into straightforward steps.
2. Automate where possible: Use smart defaults or automated steps to reduce manual input for users, especially in data-heavy forms.
3. Keep controls intuitive: Design controls that feel natural and easy to use, no matter the complexity hidden behind them.
4. Hide complexity in layers: Make advanced options available only when users need them, keeping the main interface uncluttered for most users.

#5. Jakob’s Law

Jakob’s Law taps into a basic truth: users spend most of their time on other sites or apps, so they bring those expectations with them. If your design feels familiar, users are likely to find it easier to navigate and understand.

For instance, our template of hotel booking app follows the standard design that has minimum to no surprises for users.

It's one of the laws of UX that encourage designers to follow standard patterns and layouts that users are already comfortable with. This makes the experience feel intuitive and reduces the learning curve.

Here’s how you can apply Jakob’s Law in UX:

1. Stick to familiar navigation patterns: Use standard layouts for menus, headers, and buttons so users know where to find things.
2. Adopt widely used symbols: To eliminate guesswork, use universally recognized icons (like a shopping cart for purchases or a magnifying glass for searching).
3. Consistent page structure: This will help improve navigation and keep key elements, like search bars or login links, in predictable locations.
4. Avoid reinventing the wheel: Follow established conventions instead of creating something radically different unless it truly enhances the user experience.

#6. Miller’s Law

Miller’s Law states that people can only hold a limited number of items in their short-term memory—usually around seven.

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In UX, this means that too much information at once can overwhelm users.

So, for your designers to keep things manageable, they’ll need to organize information into smaller, digestible chunks. It help users process content without feeling overloaded.

You can take the following actions to use Miller’s Law in UX:

1. Group-related information: Organize content into sections or categories to make it easier for users to absorb.
2. Limit items in a list: Avoid long lists that require too much scrolling; stick to around 5–7 items per group when possible.
3. Use visual hierarchy: Break down content with headers, subheadings, and whitespace so users can scan and understand the page quickly.
4. Progressive disclosure: Reveal information step-by-step instead of all at once, allowing users to focus on one part at a time.

#7. Fitts’s Law

Designing a user-friendly interface is about making sure that the end-users can interact with elements smoothly and effortlessly. Here, you can consider Fitts’s Law which highlights the fact that the closer and larger an interactive element is, the easier it is for users to reach and click on it.

Users on mobile devices require accuracy, and this is tricky. For this, you need to follow this law of UX which creates a difference in creating a frustration-free experience.

Its thoughtful application is all about turning every interaction into a simple, comfortable action. For high-priority buttons like “Add to Cart” or “Submit,” this is a great option that keeps key ‘call to actions’ accessible without users having to search or stretch for them.

How to Use Fitts’s Law in UX:

1. Make important buttons prominent: Large, visible buttons for key actions like “Buy Now” let users act quickly without searching.
2. Position essential actions within easy reach: For mobile, place frequently used buttons close to the screen edges where thumbs naturally rest.
3. Design with mobile in mind: On smaller screens, ensure clickable areas, like links and icons, have enough space around them to prevent accidental taps.
4. Keep related options together: When two choices go hand in hand, like “Save” and “Cancel,” positioning them close together reduces unnecessary hand movement.

Conclusion

All these laws of UX provide a structured approach to creating interfaces that feel intuitive, responsive, and satisfying. Considering these laws will help add another layer of usability that keeps users engaged and reduces friction.

Combining these laws thoughtfully is what separates interfaces that users tolerate from ones they actually enjoy. If you are applying these principles to a real design, WireframePro is built for exactly this kind of structured UI planning, so you can test layout decisions against these laws before committing to a final design. This is where UX goes beyond visual appeal, creating digital spaces where users feel comfortable and connected.

Following these principles doesn’t mean stifling creativity; it means grounding your designs in solid foundations that respect user expectations and needs.

The result? An interface that feels natural and intuitive to keep users coming back.

Laws of UX: Frequently Asked Questions

How many laws of UX are there? 

There are 21 recognized laws of UX, as documented by Jon Yablonski in his book Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products and Services and at lawsofux.com. These 21 laws are drawn from research in psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral design. They are organized into four categories: heuristics, Gestalt principles, cognitive biases, and general principles.

Who created the laws of UX? 

The laws of UX were curated by Jon Yablonski, a product designer who compiled them into a framework in his 2020 O'Reilly book and through lawsofux.com. Yablonski did not invent the laws themselves — each one comes from existing research in psychology and cognitive science. His contribution was organizing them into an accessible, practical reference for designers.

What is the difference between UX laws and UX heuristics?

UX heuristics, like Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, are evaluative guidelines used to audit whether an interface is usable. UX laws are derived from psychological research and describe how people naturally perceive and respond to stimuli. In practice, heuristics tell you what to check for; UX laws help explain why certain design decisions work.

Do you need to follow all 21 laws on every project? 

No. Not every law applies to every design context. Fitts's Law is most relevant when placing interactive elements on mobile screens. Miller's Law matters most when designing forms or navigation menus with multiple options. The approach is to understand all 21 laws and apply the ones that match what your interface is asking users to do.