Which principle states that objects that are near to each other tend to be grouped together?

Have you ever looked at the moon at night and catch the man in the moon staring at you or have you gazed at the bare walls of your room and make out of the dots and patterns you find on it a beautiful relatable image or a weird image that scares you?

If yes, then you are not alone, I do same too.You are not hallucinating, it is just the brain playing a fast one on our eyes, it pulls together all the available patterns, dots or objects we see and create images in our mind and presents this processed entirety.

The human brain is configured in a way that allows it to create logical images by comparing patterns and connecting the available dots, so for a better design experience, it is important that designers appreciate this cognitive ability and find ways to apply it in user experience and interfaces design so that a better user-centered designs that will yield the intended result once perceived by users can be achieved, I mean one that users can relate to without any prior interpretation from the designers.

SO WHAT’S GESTALT PRINCIPLE?

“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” — Kurt Koffka

In the 1920s, three German psychologists birthed Gestalt, a new school of thought that means, “Unified whole” in German. It refers to theories of visual perception. These theories describe how the human brain tends to organize visual elements (chaotic or organized) into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied.

So what do you see?

Looking at the picture above, most people will see a disc-like circle, but in reality, it isn’t, they are two circles, a smaller size circle resting on the larger one, thereby creating an image that our mind interprets as a whole and not two circles. Yes, our brains love it the easy way out, so it plays the trick of interpreting grouped similar patterns to a single image that we can all relate to.

These principles that have helped in creating unity within the whole are worth knowing and applying by designers in order to ensure a better design and also help designers in know how users perceive designs and why they perceive certain designs the way they do.

In this article I will be elaborating on 7 Gestalt principles that are important to designers and they are;

1. Principle of Proximity

2. Principle of Similarity

3. Principle of Figure-Ground

4. Principle of Common Region

5. Principle of Continuity

6. Principle of Closure

7. Principle of Focal Point

PRINCIPLE OF PROXIMITY: This principle states thatthings that are nearer to each other appear to be more related than things that are distanced from each other. This principle group patterns that are closer together and make an image out of them and things that are far apart are being perceived as individual patterns and not as a group that makes a whole.

Have you ever wondered why certain objects when grouped together can still be recognized as an image regardless of their differences in shapes and colors?

The picture above, is a pointer to how powerful Proximity affects our designs; it overrides certain properties of designs like shape, color and some characteristics that might differentiate a group of objects. So we see objects, because of their proximity to each other, regardless of their sizes, colors and shapes.

PRINCIPLE OF SIMILARITY: The principle of similarity states thatwhen objects appear to look similar to one another people often perceive them as a ground and tend to think that they share the same functionalities.

PRINCIPLE OF FIGURE-GROUND: This principle states that human brain instinctively creates an image by grouping the patterns or dots on the foreground or the background.

PRINCIPLE OF COMMON REGION: This principle states thatobjects located within the same closed region are perceived by human brain as a group.This principle is highly related to principle of proximity.

PRINCIPLE OF CONTINUITY: This principle states thatelements that are arranged on a line or curve are perceived to be more related than elements not on the line or curve.

Continuation occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object.

PRINCIPLE OF CLOSURE: This principle states thatwhen we look at incomplete visual elements, we tend to look for a single recognizable pattern and fix the puzzle.

Renown brands like IBM, NBC, Zendesk, etc, apply this principle in the creation of their logos.

In other words, when humans are presented with an image that has missing parts, the brain will fill in the blank space and make a complete relatable picture out of it.

PRINCIPLE OF FOCAL POINT: This principle states that whatever is distinctive and catches the attention of the eyes will hold the viewer’s attention first.

Lines, shapes, colors, textures, size, etc, can be used to create emphasis.

What is Gestalt principle of proximity?

What are the 5 principles of the Gestalt principle?

What are Gestalt grouping principles?

Which design principle states that related items should be grouped close together?