Journal of Experimental Psychology

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Paul M. Fitts

Comments:
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Comment #2
Comment #3


Summary:
Mr. Paul Fitts, along with his Journal of Experimental Psychology, are responsible for Fitts' Law. Fitts' Law is a function that can predict the time it will take a person to move to a target area. Fitts' Law takes into account four variables: the start and stop time of the device being used to reach the target area (a), the inherent speed of the device (b), the distance from the start area to the target area (D), and the width of the target area (W). These all combine to reach the time it takes to reach the target area (T): T = a + b*log2(1 + D/W).

This formula was discovered by running multiple experiments in which participants were timed as they moved to a target area. Looking at the results from these experiments, Fitts found the trends that occurred and derived the formula.


Discussion:
I do not think I will ever pull out my Fitts' law formula and use it to see if a button in my user interface is big enough or a menu item is too far away. I will, however, remember the principles that come out of this: the bigger and/or closer a target is, the quicker and easier it will be to reach that target. It seems like this does not need a paper to be written to know that. It seems like it should be known to everyone through intuition. It is a very important concept though that I do not think I would have every consciously considered if I had not read this paper.