Chapter 2 - Our Vision is Optimized to See Structure

- group of German psychologists sought to explain how human visual perception works
- human vision is holistic: our visual system automatically imposes structure on visual
input and is wired to perceive whole shapes, figures, and objects rather than
disconnected edges, lines, and areas
- German word for “shape” or “figure” is Gestalt → Gestalt principles of visual perception
- regard the Gestalt theory of perception as more of a descriptive framework than an
explanatory and predictive theory
- Today’s theories of visual perception tend to be based heavily on the neurophysiology of
the eyes, optic nerve, and brain
- findings of neurophysiological researchers support the observations of the Gestalt
psychologists
- wired” to perceive our surroundings in terms of whole objects
- They also provide a useful basis for guidelines for graphic design and user-interface
design

Gestalt Principle: Proximity

- The Gestalt principle of Proximity is that the relative distance between objects in a
display affects our 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
- The Proximity principle has obvious relevance to the layout of control panels or data
forms in software, Web sites, and electronic appliances
- often separate groups of on-screen controls and data display by enclosing them in group
boxes or by placing separator lines between groups
- items on a display can be visually grouped simply by
spacing them closer to each other than to other controls,
without group boxes or visible borders
- to reduce visual clutter and code size in a user interface
- Conversely, if controls are poorly spaced (e.g., if
connected controls are too far apart) people will have
trouble perceiving them as related, making the software
harder to learn and remember

Gestalt Principle: Similarity

- Similarity, where objects that look similar appear grouped, all other things being
equal

Gestalt Principle: Continuity

- In addition to the two Gestalt principles concerning our tendency to organize objects into
groups
- describe our visual system’s tendency to resolve ambiguity or fill in missing data
in such a way as to perceive whole objects
 - Continuity, states that our visual perception is biased to perceive
continuous forms rather than disconnected segments.
- A well-known example of the use of the continuity principle in graphic
design is the IBM® logo
- consists of disconnected blue patches, and yet it is not at all
ambiguous; it is easily seen as three bold letters, perhaps
viewed through something like Venetian blinds
- Slider controls are a user-interface example of the Continuity principle
- see a slider as depicting a single range controlled by a handle that appears somewhere
on the slider, not as two separate ranges separated by the handle
- Even displaying different colours on each side of a slider’s handle doesn’t completely
“break” our perception of a slider as one continuous object

Gestalt Principle: Closure

- Closure, which states that our visual system automatically tries to close open
figures so that they are perceived as whole objects rather than separate pieces
- Our visual system is so strongly biased to see objects that it can even
interpret a totally blank area as an object
- The Closure principle is often applied in graphical user interfaces (GUIs)
- GUIs often represent collections of objects (e.g., documents or messages) as
stacks
- Just showing one whole object and the edges of others “behind” it is enough
to make users perceive a stack of objects, all whole

Gestalt Principle: Symmetry

- A third fact about our tendency to see objects is captured in the Gestalt principle of
Symmetry
- we tend to parse complex scenes in a way that reduces the complexity
- data in our visual field usually has more than one possible interpretation, but our vision
automatically organizes and interprets the data so as to simplify it and give it symmetry
- In printed graphics and on computer screens, our visual system’s reliance on the
symmetry principle can be exploited to represent three-dimensional objects on a two-
dimensional display

Gestalt Principle: Figure/Ground

 - The principle states that our mind separates the visual field into the figure (the
foreground) and ground (the background)
- The foreground consists of the elements of a scene that are the object of our primary
attention, and the background is everything else
- also specifies that the visual system’s parsing of scenes into figure and ground is
influenced by characteristics of the scene
- when a small object or color patch overlaps a larger one, we tend to perceive the smaller
object as the figure and the larger object as the ground
- However, our perception of figure versus ground is not completely determined
- by scene characteristics.
- depends on the viewer’s focus of attention
- In user-interface and Web design, the Figure/Ground principle is often used to place an
impression-inducing background “behind” the primary displayed content
- The background can convey information (e.g., the user’s current location), or it can
suggest a theme, brand, or mood for interpretation of the
content
- Figure/Ground is also often used to pop up information
over other content
- Content that was formerly the figure—the focus of the
users’ attention—temporarily becomes the background for
new information, which appears briefly as the new figure
- approach is usually better than temporarily replacing the
old information with the new information

Gestalt Principle: Common Fate

- The previous six Gestalt principles concerned perception of static (unmoving) figures
and objects
- Common Fate—concerns moving objects
- related to the Proximity and Similarity principles—like them, it affects whether we
perceive objects as grouped
- principle states that objects that move together are perceived as grouped or related
- Common motion—implying common fates—is used in some animations to show
relationships between entities

Gestalt Principles: Combined

- Of course, in real-world visual scenes, the Gestalt principles work in concert, not in
isolation
- With all these Gestalt principles operating at once, unintended visual relationships can
be implied by a design
- recommended practice, after designing a display, is to view it with each of the Gestalt
principles in mind
- to see if the design suggests any relationships between elements that you do not intend