When I design an interactive piece of software next time, I would consider both Gestalt principles and Fitt’s Law at different stage of the design process.
Once I have a clear understanding of my targeted users through research, I would then consider their familiarity with digital products. For users who are less experienced, I may rely more on Gestalt principles like enlarge touch areas to reduce the risk of errors. For more sophisticated users, I will focus on efficiency like optimizing target placement or adding keyboard shortcuts.
Then, during the early visual design stage, Gestalt principles can help me create a more intuitive visual layout. For example, I would apply the Law of Similarity to ensure that the icons and CTA buttons share the same style, reducing cognitive load. Additionally, principles like Closure and Common Fate can guide the design of animations, making the interface easier to understand at a glance.
In the prototyping stage, Fitts’s Law becomes essential in shaping the interaction details. I would pay close attention to the size of the targets, making buttons large enough for comfortable clicking or tapping across different digital devices. Another point I want to emphasize in my future design is taking advantage of screen edges as infinite targets. Looking back at the projects I designed before, I often placed toolbars or menus at the screen edges simply because many well-designed apps and websites did so, and I copied what I learned from them. But now that I understand Fitts’s Law, I would do this intentionally, ensuring that users can hit those targets quickly without overshooting.
Grammar confirmed with ChatGPT 5