Open knowledge base for product designers, engineers, and UX leaders. Usability heuristics, cognitive psychology models, and interaction laws without paywalls.
Product Thinking
Learn how to frame a UX problem before opening Figma. A practical process for understanding users, identifying friction, questioning assu...
Product Thinking
Not every usability problem needs a UI redesign. Learn how to distinguish UI, UX, flow, information, content, trust, and product problems...
UX Process
Learn how to identify, prioritize, and test assumptions in UX design before they silently become product decisions. Includes a simple pra...
UX Process
Learn how to test UX design decisions before development using prototypes, usability testing, assumptions, success criteria, and evidence...
Cognitive Psychology
Affordances define what an object can do, while signifiers communicate where and how that action happens. Learn how to design clear senso...
Cognitive Psychology
A mental model is how users believe a system works; a conceptual model is how the designer built it. Discover how to align both to create...
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive load theory posits that human working memory is limited. Learn how to eliminate extraneous load, manage intrinsic complexity, a...
UX Process
Information Architecture provides the structural taxonomy of digital spaces, while wayfinding ensures spatial orientation. Master both to...
UX Laws
Hick’s Law proves that decision time increases logarithmically with the number of choices. Learn how to stage choices, reduce decision la...
UX Laws
Fitts’s Law models human motor movement, proving that target acquisition speed depends on distance and size. Discover how to optimize tou...
UX Thinking
It's easy to get caught up choosing fonts, colors, and layouts, but none of those decisions matter if they don't solve a real problem. Be...
Product Thinking
When people hear the word simple, they often imagine removing elements from a screen. But simplicity in UX isn't about having fewer butto...
UX Thinking
One lesson that completely changed the way I design is this: users don't experience wireframes, they experience emotions. They feel confu...
UX Process
When people hear user persona, they often imagine a document filled with names, ages, occupations, and a stock photo. While these details...
UX Thinking
Think about the last app or website you genuinely enjoyed using. Chances are, you don't remember its animations or visual effects; you re...
UX Thinking
It's tempting to celebrate the moment high-fidelity mockups look balanced, clean, and visually stunning. But aesthetics are only table st...
UX Laws
Touch targets and clickable elements must be sufficiently large and positioned close to the user’s resting thumb or cursor zone to minimi...
UX Laws
When users are bombarded with too many options, decision fatigue sets in. Simplify choices by categorizing, progressive disclosure, and h...
UX Laws
Human short-term memory has strict biological limits. Organize content into meaningful, digestible chunks of 5 to 9 items so users can pr...
UX Laws
Do not reinvent established UI paradigms. Familiar patterns (search bar top-right, cart icon top-right, logo home link top-left) allow us...
UX Laws
Whitespace is functional syntax. Elements with related functions or meaning must sit closer to one another than to unrelated elements, im...
UX Laws
When a task is visibly incomplete, cognitive tension motivates users to finish it. Stepper bars, profile completion meters, and saved dra...
UX Laws
When an interface responds in under 400ms, user focus is maintained. If backend processing exceeds this limit, animated skeleton screens,...
UX Laws
Delightful confirmation screens, celebratory micro-animations on task completion, and compassionate error recovery leave a disproportiona...
UX Laws
Visual distinction commands attention. Use contrasting colors, badges, or elevated elevation on primary calls-to-action or featured tiers...
Cognitive Psychology
Users are driven to protect progress, save money, and avoid data loss. Apply ethical framing to protect users from accidental data deleti...
Usability Heuristics
The universal playbook for auditing and building digital interfaces. Covering system status visibility, user control, error prevention, c...
Design Frameworks
Ensures teams design the right thing before designing things right. Diamond 1 focuses on exploring and defining the real user problem; Di...
Design Frameworks
Focuses on the functional, emotional, and social progress a user desires rather than superficial demographics. Uncovers true user motivat...
Design Frameworks
The industry gold standard for quantitative usability benchmarking. A SUS score above 68 is considered average; scores above 80 indicate ...
Product Thinking
Most products start with one user before multiple roles are introduced. Instead of creating separate fragmented dashboards, master how sh...