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What I learnt in Year 9 Psychology

The sum is greater than it’s parts

When you look at a face, do you look at each feature individually (eyes, nose, mouth) or do you just see a face? Defs, just a face.

Gestalt theory is a concept that I learnt in Year 9 Psychology, which is honestly just common sense. It talks about how humans try to make sense of individual elements by grouping things together.

Now that we got the easy part out of the way, let’s get into the fiddly bits.

What is important to remember about Gestalt Theory when designing a product?

1. Proximity: Elements that are close to each other are perceived as a group.
2. Similarity: Objects that look similar are often viewed as part of the same group.
3. Continuity: The human eye tends to follow continuous lines and curves, leading to the perception of connectedness between elements that are arranged in a line or curve.
4. Closure: The mind tends to fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object. For example, if parts of a shape are missing, we still perceive the entire shape by mentally filling in the gaps.

3 ways to apply this to your design problems

1. If you want design elements or user choices to be considered within a set, keep them close, make them look visually similar and arrange them in a continuous line or curve.
2. When users are making purchasing decisions considering very similar looking products, you have to focus on highlighting what exactly is different to help your user make more informed choices.
3. Clarity over closure! If you’re designing a logo, the closure principle may excite you. However, an example of ‘closure’ gone wrong is the 2012 London Olympics logo. The logo was designed to represent the numbers “2012,” but have a look at it yourself and tell me if it was worth it?