Would you believe that one of the most important, fundamental, and common-sense laws of design is also one of the most frequently ignored?
We can't believe it either!
You may or may not have heard of Fitts's Law but if you've designed any interfaces you've almost certainly used it.
A researcher named Paul Fitts created a model that describes how quickly people can select a target.
It's important to know this law if you're designing websites, mobile apps, device interfaces or even physical dashboards.
Fitts's Law says that the time to acquire a target is a function of the size of the target and the distance to the target.
Here's the equation.
The important variables are the target and the distance to that target.
A target is what the user is trying to interact with -- maybe it's a button to tap or a form field that needs to be clicked into.
The distance to the target is how far away that target is from wherever someone starts out.
