Summary: A response to the misapplication of “Jakob’s Law.”
Note: I wrote this to vent after a bad day and a frustrating interaction I had a few months ago. I left it as a draft because there are enough angry screeds on the internet already. But revisiting it now, I feel like it’s actually maybe worth publishing? So that’s what I’m doing (with some light editing). But please note that I am feeling much better now and bear no ill will toward the person who inspired this.
1. Jakob’s Law of the Internet User Experience
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, End of Web Design
I like Jakob’s Law. It’s a nice way of telling designers “hey, don’t reinvent the wheel.” It’s a good reminder that the point of what we’re doing here is to help people accomplish tasks, not show off how clever we are.
But here’s what Jakob’s Law isn’t:
Jakob’s Law isn’t an excuse to uncritically copy other people’s design choices. Just because Google or Apple or Facebook did something doesn’t mean they made the right choice, and it’s on you to think critically about the interaction you’re copying. Big tech companies make mistakes all the time, and the fact that they’re big doesn’t make it a web standard.
Jakob’s Law doesn’t mean you can’t do better. Users might be arriving on your website with an existing mental model, and that model will absolutely influence how they interact with the thing you’re making. But doing something different than they expect isn’t the same thing as fighting their mental model. You can use their expectations as a starting point to provide them something better and more effective.
Jakob’s Law isn’t permission to build something that’s not accessible. Users spend most of their time on other sites, and the other sites probably have significant accessibility issues. Those other sites’ failures do not mean users would prefer for your site to also have accessibility issues. The most important thing you can do for your users is help them do the thing they’re trying to do on your website. Writing off some segment of your user population because what you need to do to provide an accessible experience is different from what you see on other websites is not defensible.
Or, put more simply: Jakob’s Law isn’t an excuse to do poor work.
So when I give you accessibility feedback—when my feedback is consistent with WCAG and uses plain old semantic HTML with clear labeling and a simple interaction pattern—please, please, please do not cite Jakob’s Law as the reason why you don’t want to do it. Have some self respect.