Laws of Software Engineering · Principle
Principle
Hick's Law
The time it takes to make a decision grows with the number of options.
How to use it. Reduce options to speed decisions. Apply it to user interfaces, command-line tools, configuration files, API surfaces, and meeting agendas. Three good options beat ten okay ones.
How it gets misused. Used to argue for hiding options entirely. The aim is to shrink the decision in front of the user while keeping the capability. A tool with fewer visible defaults can still have full power for those who need it.
Related
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Principle
Principle of Least Astonishment
Software should behave the way someone familiar with it would expect.
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Principle
Cognitive Load
The mental effort needed to understand or change a system. There is a fixed budget per person and per team.
Clusters
- The Code Design cluster - How to write code that survives change.