Visual thinking for design

cover image

Where to find it

Information & Library Science Library

Call Number
BF241 .W37 2008
Status
Available

Park Library (School of Media & Journalism)

Call Number
BF241 .W37 2008
Status
Available

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

Visual Thinking brings the science of perception to the art of design. Designers increasingly need to present information in ways that aid their audience's thinking process. Fortunately, results from the relatively new science of human visual perception provide valuable guidance.

In this book, Colin Ware takes what we now know about perception, cognition, and attention and transforms it into concrete advice that designers can directly apply. He demonstrates how designs can be considered as tools for cognition - extensions of the viewer's brain in much the same way that a hammer is an extension of the user's hand. The book includes hundreds of examples, many in the form of integrated text and full-color diagrams.

Experienced professional designers and students alike will learn how to maximize the power of the information tools they design for the people who use them.

Contents

  • Preface p. ix
  • Visual Queries p. 1
  • The Apparatus and Process of Seeing p. 5
  • The Act of Perception p. 8
  • Bottom-Up p. 10
  • Top-Down p. 12
  • Implications for Design p. 14
  • Nested Loops p. 17
  • Distributed Cognition p. 19
  • Conclusion p. 20
  • What We Can Easily See p. 23
  • The Machinery of Low-Level Feature Analysis p. 25
  • What and Where Pathways p. 26
  • Eye Movement Planning p. 26
  • What Stands Out = What We Can Bias for p. 27
  • Lessons for Design p. 33
  • Motion p. 36
  • Visual Search Strategies and Skills p. 37
  • The Detection Field p. 37
  • The Visual Search Process p. 39
  • Using Multiscale Structure to Design for Search p. 40
  • Conclusion p. 41
  • Structuring Two-Dimensional Space p. 43
  • 2.5D Space p. 44
  • The Pattern-Processing Machinery p. 46
  • The Binding Problem: Features to Contours p. 46
  • The Generalized Contour p. 49
  • Texture Regions p. 50
  • Interference and Selective Tuning p. 51
  • Patterns, Channels, and Attention p. 52
  • Intermediate Patterns p. 53
  • Pattern Learning p. 54
  • Serial Processing p. 55
  • Visual Pattern Queries and the Apprehendable Chunk p. 55
  • Multi-chunk Queries p. 56
  • Spatial Layout p. 56
  • Horizontal and Vertical p. 57
  • Pattern for Design p. 58
  • Examples of Pattern Queries with Common Graphical Artifacts p. 60
  • Semantic Pattern Mappings p. 62
  • Color p. 65
  • The Color-Processing Machinery p. 66
  • Opponent Process Theory p. 68
  • Channel Properties p. 69
  • Principles for Design p. 75
  • Showing Detail p. 75
  • Color-Coding Information p. 77
  • Large and Small Areas p. 77
  • Emphasis and Highlighting p. 78
  • Color Sequences p. 80
  • Color on Shaded Surfaces p. 83
  • Semantics of Color p. 84
  • Conclusion p. 84
  • Getting the Information: Visual Space and Time p. 87
  • Depth Perception and Cue Theory p. 89
  • Stereoscopic Depth p. 94
  • Structure from Motion p. 95
  • 2.5D Design p. 95
  • How Much of the Third Dimension? p. 97
  • Affordances p. 99
  • The Where Pathway p. 100
  • Artificial Interactive Spaces p. 102
  • Space Traversal and Cognitive Costs p. 103
  • Conclusion p. 105
  • Visual Objects, Words, and Meaning p. 107
  • The Inferotemporal Cortex and the What Channel p. 108
  • Generalized Views from Patterns p. 109
  • Structured Objects p. 110
  • Gist and Scene Perception p. 112
  • Visual and Verbal Working Memory p. 114
  • Verbal Working Memory p. 115
  • Control of the Attention and the Cognitive Process p. 115
  • Long-term Memory p. 116
  • Priming p. 118
  • Getting into Visual Working Memory p. 118
  • Thinking in Action: Receiving a Cup of Coffee p. 120
  • Elaborations and Implications for Design p. 121
  • Make Objects Easy to Identify p. 121
  • Novelty p. 122
  • Images as Symbols p. 123
  • Meaning and Emotion p. 124
  • Imagery and Desire p. 125
  • Conclusion p. 126
  • Visual and Verbal Narrative p. 129
  • Visual Thinking Versus Language-Based Thinking p. 130
  • Learned Symbols p. 131
  • Grammar and Logic p. 132
  • Comparing and Contrasting the Verbal and Written Modes p. 133
  • Linking Words and Images Through Diexis p. 135
  • PowerPoint Presentations and Pointing p. 136
  • Mirror Neurons: Copycat Cells p. 137
  • Visual Narrative: Capturing the Cognitive Thread p. 138
  • Q&A Patterns p. 139
  • Framing p. 139
  • FINSTs and Divided Attention p. 140
  • Shot transitions p. 141
  • Cartoons and Narrative Diagrams p. 142
  • Single-frame Narratives p. 144
  • Conclusion p. 145
  • Creative Meta-Seeing p. 147
  • Mental Imagery p. 148
  • The Magic of the Scribble p. 152
  • Diagrams are Ideas Made Concrete p. 155
  • Requirements and Early Design p. 156
  • Visual Task Analysis p. 157
  • The Creative Design Loop p. 158
  • Cognitive Economics of Design Sketching p. 158
  • The Perceptual Critique p. 160
  • Meta-seeing with Design Prototypes p. 162
  • Visual Skill Development p. 163
  • Conclusion p. 164
  • The Dance of Meaning p. 165
  • Review p. 166
  • Implications p. 172
  • Design to Support Pattern Finding p. 172
  • Optimizing the Cognitive Process p. 174
  • Learning and the Economics of Cognition p. 177
  • Attention and the Cognitive Thread p. 179
  • What's Next? p. 181
  • Index p. 183

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