101 UX Principles

Chapter #95. Build Upon Established Metaphors – It's Not Stealing

Over the years, I've found that part of the imagined "code of practice" of designers is to not steal. As we train and learn, we're taught to develop our own design style and not to borrow too much. Imitation is discouraged and copying the designs of others is frowned upon, dishonest even.

In UX, this is the polar opposite of best practice. Consider Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience (https://www.nngroup.com/videos/jakobs-law-internet-ux/), which states, "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".

Jakob Nielsen utterly nails it with this one. Your users spend the vast majority ...