The Pocket Universal Principles of Design

135 Threat Detection

Threatening things are detected more efficiently than nonthreatening things.

• People reflexively detect and pay attention to certain threatening stimuli, such as spiders, snakes, predators, and angry human faces.

• This threat-detection ability provided early human ancestors with an adaptive advantage. Modern humans have inherited this ability.

• Things possessing key features of threatening stimuli can also trigger threat detection; for example, a wavy line that looks snakelike.

• Consider using key features of threatening stimuli in your designs to capture and hold attention.

See Also Archetypes • Black Effects • Contour ...