OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19129/Visualising_Fitts_Law Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 21 May 2013 23:48:17 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Learning process http://www.osnews.com/thread?295191 http://www.osnews.com/thread?295191 Thom, are there any studies you are aware of that measure the impact of regular use? In lots of areas of human behaviour, they can be quite unexpected.

The thing I am sceptical about is whether Fitts law (and HIG guidelines generally) really applies if you take account of learning. Is it not possible that the most important feature of how to do something on a computer is whether we have done it that way n times? Take Vi and Emacs, for instance. Completely different, but is there really much difference in productivity after people know them? KDE and Gnome and XP in default modes? I'm thinking of stuff like how in KDE it always prompts for move or copy when you drag and drop. Seems cumbersome at first, but you soon get used to it.

Obviously there are some egregious examples of poor design, requiring you to go through far too many steps, or use tiny obscure buttons with great precision. But leave aside these obvious ones, isn't it possible that learning is the key factor? Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alcibiades) Comments RE: Learning process http://www.osnews.com/thread?295323 http://www.osnews.com/thread?295323
But leave aside these obvious ones, isn't it possible that learning is the key factor?


That's the big weakness of Fitts', and the reason why its importance should not be overstated: it does not take learning into account. Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments