Nice interactive tutorial on Fitt’s Law

 – posted February 22nd, 2007 by Brian Donohue     Comments (2)

(For the next couple weeks, we’ll be guest blogging over at the IIA blog, so most posts will appear both here and there.)

Over at the Vrije University, in Amsterdam, there’s a nice little tutorial on Fitt’s Law. If you haven’t heard it before, Fitt’s Law was established back in 1954, and focuses on the speed of clicking onscreen elements. Anyone in web design should be at least superficially familiar with this law.

The tutorial actually includes interactive “experiments” where you get to click on a bunch of circles. True, clicking on circles loses its appeal pretty quickly, even immediately. But if you stick with it for a couple minutes, you get to actually experience what Fitt’s law describes. If you’re a bit impatient, you can just click ahead and read about what you were supposed to experience.

Screenshot of tutorial

I think the tutorial is nice because by experiencing it, you’re more likely to acutally remember it, and because it points out some insights I hadn’t realised before. Like why the Mac menu bars are always at the top of the screen, regardless of whether the application window is full screen.

Mac OS menus are always at the top of the screen, so it�¢ï¿½ï¿½s just not possible to overshoot them. You just move your mouse to the top and no matter how hard you try, you�¢ï¿½ï¿½ll always end up on a menu bar.

And though the basics of Fitt’s Law seems plainly obvious, the tutorial points out where Fitt’s Law is actually counter-intuitive: “The opposite corner of the screen may be easier to target than a spot three pixels away!”

So if you’re looking for a 5 or 10 minute diversion, it’s worth a gander.

Categories Design, Usability

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