Former Microsoft exec explain how a behavioral psychologist utilized Fitts’s law to place the Windows 95 Start button in the bottom-left.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law
Fitts’s law (also known as Fitts’ law) is a predictive model of human movement primarily used in human–computer interaction and ergonomics. The law predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target.[1] Fitts’s law is used to model the act of pointing, either by physically touching an object with a hand or finger, or virtually, by pointing to an object on a computer monitor using a pointing device.
Corners have an infinite area and are the quickest to hit.
Now, Win11 (by default) puts the start menu in a variable location, so it’s both slower to interact with (more precision required) and prone to errors (misclicks).
I know from a technical standpoint, W95 was really, really shaky. But for me it was my first OS, and I think it still did a ton of stuff right.
Tada.wav
