Jakob's Law: people spend most of their time in other products. They import mental models — navigation, search, carts — and expect yours to feel familiar.
Conventions are leverage
Reinventing patterns without a strong reason forces relearning. Borrow what works (tabs, breadcrumbs, cart icons) and reserve novelty for real differentiation.
When to break the mold
Only when you remove meaningful friction or serve a new medium. Always pair innovation with onboarding, previews, or reversible trial states.
Consistency across your product
Even “familiar globally” fails if your own screens disagree about labels, iconography, and where things live.
Practices
- Patterns from major platforms for search, accounts, checkout.
- Stable placement for nav and profile.
- Plain language labels instead of branded jargon.
Common pitfalls
- Novel gestures with zero hints.
- Renaming standard elements (“Basket” vs “Cart”) without cause.
- Hiding account or logout in unexpected corners.