Fitts’ Law

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The time to a target depends on the ratio of distance to the target over it’s size. So clicking on a small target close by might take a similar time to clicking on a large target further away. It’s a simple model and there are a few little games out there to bring it home in practice.

I’m reminded however, of an observation from a mentor of mine, Darrell Mann , that just because people call it a law doesn’t mean you have to treat it like one. The example of Apple’s standard program icons at the base of the screen that expand when you mouse near them, are a simple technique that help to overcome the limitations of Fitt’s law. There are plenty more. Don’t be sucked in to laziness by a name.

Published 5 Aug 2015

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Metcalfe’s Law

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Eponym

Goodhart's law illustration showing a manager frustrated by 1000's of tiny nails when measuring on number of nails made, and pulling their hair out when presented with giant nails when measuring on weight

Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Metcalfe's Law is: "The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system." — Robert Metcalfe This law explains a little of the remarkable power of a growing network. Each time you add a user or node to the network, the number of connections increases in proportion to the square of the number of users. So, in this simple example where every new node gets a connection to each of the existing nodes, you can see that, say, adding a single node to an 11-node network creates 11 new connections. It’s a simplified example because in most networks, the value is not directly proportional to the number of connections as some connections or users may be more valuable than others, and usually, adding a new user wouldn’t create a connection to all existing users — say if it was in a different country, or people spoke a different language or just cared about different things. But nevertheless, you can see how a network quickly becomes valuable as users join. So, Facebook has about 2 billion users… Metcalfe was talking about telecommunications networks, and the basic proposition has been modified since it was formulated, including by Metcalfe himself. Just because something is called a law doesn’t mean it is one. See Fitt’s Law…Metcalfe's Law is: "The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system." — Robert Metcalfe This law explains a little of the remarkable power of a growing network. Each time you add a user or node to the network, the number of connections increases in proportion to the square of the number of users. So, in this simple example where every new node gets a connection to each of the existing nodes, you can see that, say, adding a single node to an 11-node network creates 11 new connections. It’s a simplified example because in most networks, the value is not directly proportional to the number of connections as some connections or users may be more valuable than others, and usually, adding a new user wouldn’t create a connection to all existing users — say if it was in a different country, or people spoke a different language or just cared about different things. But nevertheless, you can see how a network quickly becomes valuable as users join. So, Facebook has about 2 billion users… Metcalfe was talking about telecommunications networks, and the basic proposition has been modified since it was formulated, including by Metcalfe himself. Just because something is called a law doesn’t mean it is one. See Fitt’s Law

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