We group circles with circles, and squares with squares. But there are different ways in which things might look alike. The eye can easily pick out items that look alike and the mind will group them together. Much of what we do with the other concepts, like grouping objects, is our mind working out the simplest explanation for the data presented. We tend to try to reduce complexity to its simplest form or to its simplest parts. This principle helps explain some of the others. The German psychologists who developed Gestalt principles called this principle “Pragnänz”. Surroundedness is the idea that surrounding shapes tend to be interpreted as background to the shapes that they surround.Common fate says that objects that appear to be moving in the same direction are grouped together.Smallness means that we favor interpreting small objects as figures.Continuity is a filling in of details in order to arrive at the simplest interpretation.Closure relates to the tendency of the eye to close an opening, or to complete the broken line.Symmetry is the tendency to view symmetrical objects as figures against an asymmetrical background.Proximity relates to their relative position and how we group them.Similarity relates to what things look like and how that effects how we group them.Simplicity says that we favor the simplest interpretation.While the UI uses a wide range of different Gestalt principles, let’s focus on the clickable elements and input fields. As a result, this will allow users to extract more meaning from a UI without having to rely on copy to guide them.īelow is an example of the law of similarity in practice. This enables people to understand where the most information is on a page, as well as intuit the relationship between different types of elements. Using shapes to enforce the law of similarity is a highly effective way of helping users understand the information architecture on a page without causing excessive cognitive load. Now that we’ve taken a look at the general implications of the law of similarity, let’s see how they work in practice. Applying the law of similarity in UX design This is the law of similarity in practice-your brain is trying to make sense of the world in a meaningful way. Most of us will see it as rows of black and white dots rather than columns of dots that alternate in color. Take a quick look at the image above and think about what you see. This will enable us to analyze our surroundings much quicker and increase our chances of surviving. Your brain will automatically lump similar things together, like leaves, trees, allowing you to identify the source of your potential threat-things that stand out. Think of it this way-you’re in a forest, and, for whatever reason, you’re worried for your safety. This is most likely an evolutionary adaptation that allows us to process a large number of visual stimuli. Humans have a tendency to group visual elements into distinct categories based on shape, color, and other parameters. There are eight essential Gestalt principles:įigure/Ground (also known as Multi-stability) The three discs constitute the sum of all visual elements, while the triangle acts as the surplus meaning derived from them. The inferred figure (triangle) seems to rest on top of the Pac-Man-like discs. The Kanizsa triangle is an example of a depth illusion based on Gestalt principles. One of the fundamental tenets of Gestalt is that the whole is always more than the sum of its components. The founders of this school focused their research on the way humans organize and categorize visual stimuli and how this helps us derive meaning. The name of this school of thought originates from the German word “shape” and was established in the 1920s by a group of European psychologists. Let’s take a closer look at how you can start using this principle to your and your users’ advantage. This article is about one of the most widely used Gestalt laws used in design-the Law of Similarity. Naturally, UX and UI designers leverage Gestalt principles to create interfaces and experiences that are intuitive and easy to process. How do we know that something looks like a kettle? It’s safe to assume that most of us just know that something looks like one without having to invest too much time and effort into making this assessment. These processes allow us to make sense of the world we live in without delegating it to our conscious minds. ![]() An important set of such mechanisms are the Gestalt principles-they define the way the human brain identifies shapes. ![]() There’s a variety of processes happening in the back of our minds that govern both our conscious and unconscious. We live our lives believing that we understand the world we live in and make objective assessments of our surroundings-that’s only partly true.
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