Mike Anderson, Director of Marketing at Codefellows, gave a presentation on design this morning. Amongst the many bits of knowledge dropped, the blur test stands out as a fast, useful tool for figuring out what areas and objects in a view are important.

It’s exactly what it sounds like. De-focus your eyes while staring at an interface. This is not a puzzle. If everything snaps into the form of battling dragons seek immediate medical attention. What you should see is color fields, objects and whitespace. This is, obviously, not a detailed view. It is not a method for copyediting. Taking your focus away from the minutia allows you to view the structure of what you’re seeing without getting caught up in smaller issues (which you can’t ignore). You can deal with them when your eyes adjust back.