The human eye and brain perceive a unified shape in a different way to the way they perceive the individual parts of those shapes. This principle takes a slightly different approach to how we categorize elements. When this cognitive process kicks in, our minds leap from comprehending all of the elements as individual and unrelated components to seeing the entire shape as a whole.
This image is known as Rubin’s Vase, or The “Two Face, One Vase” illusion. The focal point principle states that whatever stands out visually will capture and hold the viewer’s attention first. If the mind sees two symmetrical items, it will group them together as one image. You can immediately tell that the grey section at the top serves a different purpose than the black section, which is also separate from and different than the blue section. A few of these principles may sound repetitive, or like “common sense.” But the following principles are meant to give you a basic understanding of grouping and how it affects our ability to perceive what we are looking at.
The cards have one of three shapes, one of three colors, or one-three shapes.
The principle of closure is key to understanding Gestalt theory. Of course, if you’ve never seen a soccer ball or a Dalmatian before, you might not come to these conclusions. How do we do that?
This poster is a great example of symmetry in action.
The human brain is wired to see structure, logic, and patterns. So we perceive them as three separate lines. However, they appear to be a …
But to understand that concept, we have to look into different principles or concepts in psychology. And as a result, we perceive forms and objects where none were created. In order to recognize all of these things, we do have to intentionally turn our focus to them. One example of this is Gestalt’s principles or laws of perception. So on and so forth.
If your mind quickly registered the vase, you recognized it as the foreground, and you probably disregarded the two faces altogether. But why is understanding this important for web and mobile design?
Second, the white text in the menu on the right stands on top of the black background. For example, when to use visual hierarchy, background shading, gradients, and how to group similar items and distinguish different ones. Color plays a big role in the similarity principle. In the image above, for example, the red dots in the curved line seem to be more related to the black dots on the curved line than to the red dots on the straight horizontal line.