Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products & Services

by Jon Yablonski

An understanding of psychology—specifically the psychology behind how users behave and interact with digital interfaces—is perhaps the single most valuable nondesign skill a designer can have. The most elegant design can fail if it forces users to conform to the design rather than working within the "blueprint" of how humans perceive and process the world around them. This practical guide explains how you can apply key principles in psychology to build products and experiences that are more intuitive and human-centered. Author Jon Yablonski deconstructs familiar apps and experiences to provide clear examples of how UX designers can build experiences that adapt to how users perceive and process digital interfaces. You’ll .

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Psychology, Business, Technology, Website Design, Art Design

150 pages, Paperback

Published May 26, 2020

About the author

I’m Jon Yablonski, a Senior UX Designer with a passion for designing digital tools that empower people. I’ve had the opportunity to learn and grow from a variety of challenges throughout my career — from e-commerce platforms, mobile apps and internal products to HMI systems within state-of-the-art vehicle platforms. I’m currently helping the world learn from its data as a Senior Product Designer Mixpanel. Previously, I worked on the next generation of in-vehicle digital experiences General Motors.

Reviews

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 ⭐

I picked this up because I was looking to refresh my memory of all those useful points you learn in college and then forget after you've written the exam. This delivered exactly what I needed! It's a compact and well-compiled book of UX basics. I'd recommend this to seasoned professionals and beginners alike.

I think it's worth mentioning that you can find a fair portion of the book's content (and more) on their site.

The two "laws" that stood out for me, and that I'd like to keep in mind more often, are:

Jakob's Law: 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.

Peak-End Rule: People judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically the book version of www.lawsofux.com -- common UX practices linked up with real psychological principles. Good as a quick reference book (or to justify deeper design reasoning to someone unfamiliar with good UX).

[Jeremy Osborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a little torn about how I feel about this book. I can't say that I learned much from the book. Having said that I think if someone is new to UX or product design this is probably a must read. There is not much depth the topics, but enough for to get started. If you have seen the Laws of UX and read articles on the topics, then I would skip the book. If you are new to UX then it is a short and worthwhile read.

[Walter Ullon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books don't need to be encyclopedic in order to get their point across - this is one of them. You can read in under one hour, probably.

It is the most easily digestible, concise text on best practices for UI/UX design I've come across; as effective as good UX should be. Unlike other books I've read, there are actual examples illustrating each of the principles. Both good and bad.

Experienced designers will not learn much - though some would do well to try and re read it...
It is perfect for the budding designer or someone without formal training looking to color inside the lines.

Recommended.

[sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I read this book when I was first learning UX! While I felt like most of this book served as a review of concepts, it was nice being able to put a name to a best practice/design “rule.” The author effectively breaks down technical principles and laws into easily digestible takeaways, examples, techniques, and histories. There’s somehow a perfect amount of information as each chapter acts as both an introductory overview and a practical guide for how to implement the law. This book is perfect for someone learning UX or looking for a refresh.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short and insightful read to simplified psychology heuristics relevant to UX design.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. There’s a ton of good information in there considering how short it is. For each law, he explains it, and then provides some examples of design that is well-grounded in it. For example, one law is Jakob’s Law: “Users spend most of their time on other sites, and they prefer your site to work similarly to the ones they already know”. He then gives some examples (e.g., e-commerce websites tend to have their search bar in a similar place), then explains cases where it might be desirable to break from the norm.

I love learning about psychology and cognitive biases, and this book was exactly what I was looking for.

[Chou Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must-read for anyone in the product design field. The writing style is clear and easy to understand, making it accessible to both experienced professionals and those new to the field. The author's ideas are insightful and conductive, providing a strong foundation for designing user-centered product and services. The book's focus on the psychology of users and how it influences design decision-making is particularly noteworthy.
I was thoroughly impressed by the depth ad breadth of the content covered in this book. highly recommend, 5 stars!

[Vanessa Castilho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply one of the best UX books I have read so far. It's a good mix of design and psychology that keeps the momentum from beginning to end. I recommend to all UX practitioners and even for the front end folks.

[Liia Davidian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book overall, there are a lot of details that the author highlights. Although it feels like it can be also quite enough to read the website, get to know all the main info and begin to use it in real life. Book just gives a bit more context but overall not much more useful than reading a website.

[Lan Chi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book suitable for beginners

[Steve Fenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of design principles grounded in psychology. I wish more of the software I use was built by people who had read this.

[Deli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty solid introduction to design.

[Rofaida Elmelege]

Useful

[Teresa Wallenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book for everyone building (digital) products. While some of the concepts might be familiar, it is a nice refresher, providing a good and nicely structured overview combining insights from psychology with design.
The author manages to convey concepts in a short and concise way, giving examples and also incorporating different techniques of user research in each chapter.

Lastly, there are some reminders on the responsibility of digital product creators and designers to make ethical decisions, to not abuse these techniques for the detriment of the users which is ever more important within the current state and development of technology and business.

[Meagan Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Laws of UX utilizes a number of pneumonic devices that distill large industry concepts into "rules" that can be easily referenced and remembered.

This book is not just a design book (in that it only provides anecdotal evidence(s) to support the proclaimed rules), but it makes an effort to combine each specific rule with a principle of social, behavioral, or cognitive psychology. This combination of "design strategy & user psychology" centralizes "user first" principles. Because these "laws" exist as a resource to be referenced, this makes it easier for design and creative processes to maintain a human-centered focus.

Similarly, it provides some conceptual shorthand, which can help UI/UX Designers better communicate with clients or teammates, a distilled version of these conceptual and guiding philosophies. The book even provides a number of case studies to support the rules with measurable data.

[cypher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, a very good book.

“How do you validate initial designs without proof that there is need to change the existing designs to begin with? (…) design reviews quickly became a matter of subjectivity and personal bias, resulting in designs that were more difficult to validate [investment into]”

The premise: design decisions can be justified by human psychology theory.
So, every designer should learn about human psychology.
“designers can use this knowledge to build more intuitive, human-centred products and experiences, instead of forcing users to adapt to the product or experience, we can use some key principles from psychology as a guide to designing in a way that is adaptable to people”

The book is structured in chapters covering the 10 main psychologically-driven laws the author is considering, with examples, and 2 chapters covering ethics, conveying theory into practical design and some complementary techniques for designers.

[Alexander Snitsarenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main idea of this book is to show how design decisions massively affect how we use products and essentially our affection to them. The author did a good job by not only presenting principles and examples, but also by showing historical and scientific background. Among pros of this book is that it contains real examples of application of these design principles. Moreover, these examples are very accessible for a layman, being taken from famous products or companies such as Apple, Amazon etc. I like generality of some examples, showing that certain ideas were taken from offline products, having been with us for many decades before IT products kicked in. This is one of those moments when you are upset that this book is only 150 pages long. In sum, this is the best UX design book to start with.

[Igo Lubczański · Rating 5 out of 5]

Na początku czytając tę książkę myślałem, że będzie to kolejne latanie w chmurach bez żadnego związku z rzeczywistością. Myliłem się — niezwykle podoba mi się prostota przekazu, uzupełniona realnymi przykładami do których większość z nas może się odnieść. Niezwykle cennym rozdziałem okazał się też ten, dotyczący etyki pracy dizajnera i wprowadzania zasad projektowych do pracy zespołu. Bardzo przemawia do mnie przełożenie treści z książki na warstwę warsztatową. Myślę, że książka będzie pomocna każdemu projektantowi pracującemu w obszarze digital, bez względu na ich poziom w organizacji czy też własnego rozwoju. Polecam.

[Khoa Pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have been ever reading so far. In addition, you don't have to be a UX/UI design expert to have a good grasp on all the knowledge covered by the book and will get insights into the well-explained intersection of human psychology and an appealing UX/UI. Some of the reasons I highly recommend this book to you are listed below:
1. Well-organized content.
2. Many awesome psychology concepts.
3. Well-explicated interaction between human psychology and attractive user interface.
4. Some of means to render the activities on the browser more intuitive to user experience.

Have a nice experience with this book ^.^

[Josh Epstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely well written and useful design book chock full of great examples that make the UX laws very applicable in real life. Would highly recommend for designers at any level to get a more detailed understanding of how human behavior and psychology can be used to create more usable designs.

[Kolbjørn Brønnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very nicely presented and to the point book about user experience. It is perfect as an introduction to a topic that spans several academic fields. This strength is a weakness if you expect a deep text involving theory and methods. It is very well written introduction, but not a manual and not a handbook.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very excellent resource for those involved in design, especially for web interfaces. Several "laws" of UX are highlighted, with insightful, real-world examples. For the seasoned UX designer this may not be anything new, but all can benefit from this as a reference & a reminder of how impactful user experience design can be.

[Joseph Whom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great reference for UX research. It is written in clear language and uses modern examples (second edition). Each chapter has a law, the psychology concept that inspired it, and a technique for implementing the law in a product development scenario. I actually dogeared the techniques pages, as I'm sure I will refer to them frequently.

[Nastya Zhenchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author goes over key principles from psychology that can be used to build more intuitive products and experiences. Easy to read, very clear explanations, insightful researches and examples. You can apply them right away in your product. Totally worth reading for designers & PMs.

[Pan Pan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who had a Design Psychology class in college, I still received something new from this book. I liked the examples following every principle, which for me was the most useful part of this book. Besides, this book was well-written and easy to read. I enjoyed it. Thank you Jon!

[Leandro Texeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livro espetacular sobre desenvolvimento de interfaces com o usuário. Designers devem levar em conta o aspecto psicológico de tudo o que criam para prover ao usuário a solução rápida, eficaz, segura e recompensadora que ele procura.

[Maria Balos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives you another perspective about how to design focusing on user's needs. I clearly recommend it not just for designers but also for curious, people who want to know more about people's behavior.

[Miguel Pinto · Rating 5 out of 5]

not being preachy, its really well written and communicate and sustains the argument all in evidence.
this helped me understanding the laws.
in essence it the laws of ux site in a paper format.
totally recommend if you want to better understand ux

[Nikolaos Kontis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book for every designer, all points are valid, true and it’s a perfect starting point for a common set of principles. It is missing common patterns that don’t fall under certain laws and are a must