The Gestalt Principles in Web Design Flashcards
Max wertheimer is a
Gestalt psychologists
What should you increase when items are related in some way?
Similarity. Group items that are related in some way.
What could improve users to detect items quickly during the visual search process?
Grouping similar items together. Ensure non-grouped items are distinguished.
In designing an interface, how can you use similarity in terms of consistency?
To enable users to infer that items still perform the same function even on a different task.
What’s one important consideration to bear with in mind with designing with the law of similarity?
Make sure you distinguish items that don’t share any meaningful relationship.
What is the law of proximity?
Our tendency to perceive items arranged in close proximity as belonging to or forming the same group.
You should place related elements in close proximity, but you should make sure that element’s that share no meaning relationship are placed…
far apart or a distance that prevents erroneous detection of grouping.
Design should attempt to arrange items so that their shared proximity conforms to the way in which we have learned to perceive…
the ‘whole’ before the constituent parts of a display.
Why is the law of proximity an important consideration when designing websites?
The law of proximity is an important consideration when designing websites because it creates order and structure that allows user’s to use less of their limited cognitive resources by allowing them to tackle each category of information one at a time. It allows them to make more confident choices when users have many options to choose from.
What should you do when you have many items to present in the form of a list of deals?
Keep images and their associated text close and be careful to distinguish them.
What is recognition?
The unconscious stimulation of an existing mental representation.
A type of memory process occurring when a neural pattern associated with a previous event.
Over time these neural patterns become ever more ‘hard-wired’, making us particularly sensitive to stimulation from new instances that might only bear slight resemblance to the existing mental representation.
What is the Law of Meaningful aka Law of Familiarity?
The perceptual bias to group elements together.
We group visual elements together to form meaningful, ‘whole’ objects, images or scenes.
Human perception is ‘hardwired’ to convert the visual information fed to the brain, via the eyes, into a
meaningful stream.
The law of meaningfulness acknowledges the form-generating bias that underpins the conversion of visual information into a meaningful stream.
What does form-generating mean?
The perceptual ability to combine elements to form whole objects that can be used or carry meaning.
When the combination of elements is familiar to us, is our perception of the meaningful form immediate or not?
Immediate.
When elements that commonly appear together, what will it stimulate?
an existing mental representation leading to instant recognition.
When unfamiliar elements stimulate an existing, strong mental representation recognition can be just as….
instantaneous
The law of familiarity essentially refers to which of the following memory processes?
Recognition
What happens when we see a combination of meaningful or familiar elements?
We generally perceive the whole object immediately.
What is the law of symmetry?
Acts to form groups from items when they are arranged symmetrically.
What law can web designers use to balance their displays and form groups from items that are in distinct parts of the same web page?
The law of symmetry
When you use the law of continuity well in a design, what do you help users do?
Make a smooth connection such as a curve or straight line, which users perceive as one object.
You can use the law of continuity to do what?
Imply to users that continuity exists in both linear designs and obscuring objects (e.g., folder icons).
What is the “Law of Common Fate”?
When visual elements move in unison we often identify as grouped.
What does the law of common fate describe?
How we typically assume that elements which move at the same time and in the same direction and/or at the same speed are linked.
What is the law of closure?
Objects that do not have to be whole or complete in order for us to successfully identify them as such.
eg.) WWF logo
When you apply the law of closure, what should be your main concern?
To minimize the number of component elements without sacrificing meaning.
What is the law of common region?
The perceptual phenomenon in which items sharing an area with a clearly defined boundary are perceived as belonging to, or forming, the same group.
What is the Law of Synchrony?
The Law of Synchrony allows us to shift our attention to related items within a website with greater speed and accuracy.
A Gestalt principle of perceptual organization that describes our perception of visual events occurring in unison as grouped or sharing the same meaning.
How could you use the law of synchrony best?
To show options with visually similar features in a dropdown menu
This capacity to turn something so random into a perceived, meaningful pattern demonstrates…
the power of human visual perception to influence our view of the world
Invariance
grouping visual elements into meaningful representations regardless of some quite striking dissimilarities between one instance and another. Invariance is, therefore, a designer’s tool; play with forms and elements to create aesthetically pleasing displays and images.
You can use invariance to considerable effect because…?
You can create aesthetically pleasing pictures by playing with elements and forms.
