Exercise 3: Tracing One Principle to a Concrete Decision — Possible Solution
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This exercise is open-ended - many chapters' own principles show up
concretely in this capstone, and any one of them, correctly traced to
an actual decision, is a valid answer. One full worked example
follows, using Hick's Law from Chapter 4.

Hick's Law says decision time increases with the number of choices
available, though logarithmically rather than linearly for real,
unfamiliar options. In Step 4, this shows up concretely in the
due-date picker's own design: rather than defaulting to an open
calendar (a much larger, unfamiliar set of choices for the common
case), the picker offers a small, curated set of options - Today,
Tomorrow, This Weekend, Pick a Date. This directly reduces the number
of real choices a user has to evaluate for the overwhelming majority
of real cases, lowering decision time exactly the way Hick's Law
predicts, while still leaving "Pick a Date" available as an escape
hatch for the less common case that needs it.

This isn't merely restating the law in the abstract - it's the
specific reason the picker has four options instead of a full
calendar grid by default, which is a concrete, traceable design
decision.

ANSWER (one valid example): Hick's Law is applied in Step 4's due-date
picker - offering only four curated options (Today, Tomorrow, This
Weekend, Pick a Date) instead of a full calendar by default directly
reduces the number of choices a user evaluates for the common case,
lowering real decision time per Hick's Law, while still allowing the
less common case through the "Pick a Date" option. Other valid
answers could equally trace Fitts's Law to the corner-placed Add
button (Step 4), a Gestalt principle to the form's own grouping (Step
5), or the WCAG contrast requirement to the overdue-label check (Step
6).

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This traces a named principle to one specific, concrete design
decision in the capstone rather than only restating the principle in
general terms, and explicitly acknowledges other chapters' own
principles would work equally well as valid answers to this
open-ended exercise.