Chapter 2

Our Vision is Optimized to See Structure

Abstract

This chapter introduces the Gestalt principles that describe human visual perception: proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, symmetry, figure-ground, and common fate, with examples of how each principle impacts user-interface design. For example, the proximity principle is that the relative distance between objects in a display affects perception of whether and how the objects are organized into subgroups: objects that are near each other (relative to other objects) appear grouped, while those that are farther apart do not.

Keywords

perception; vision; visual; Gestalt principles; proximity; similarity; continuity; closure; symmetry; figure-ground; common fate; visual design; displays; ...

Get Designing with the Mind in Mind, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.