Our eyes are powerful. Designing your communications to tap into that power can make your message far more impactful. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, suggested that vision significantly trumps all senses and that the majority of our brain’s processing power is spent on what we see. “Visual processing doesn’t just assist in the perception of our world,” he says. “It dominates our perception of the world.” Whether you’re creating a document with text, with graphics, or with photographs (or all of the above), the elements your audience’s eyes see will significantly affect what their brain processes. With this in mind, creating information should always be viewed from a visual mindset. This website covers scores of rules for designing information, but note five key elements about how what people see affects how they think about and process information:
Pictures are Superior
Research has shown undisputable evidence that pictures are, in fact, worth 1,000 words. Medina notes that the more visual information becomes, the more likely it is to be both recognized and recalled. People can remember pictures far longer (in some cases up to decades) than they can remember textual or aural information. In a strictly oral presentation, for example, people will remember about 10% three days later. If you add a picture, however, people will remember 65%. Because visual processing is so important to design, there is an official design term for it: the Picture Superiority Effect (PSE).
The First ½-Second Matters
People make incredibly quick assumptions about what they see; in fact, decisions about the visual appeal of a design may be made within the first half-second of seeing it. Research by Reinecke et al suggests that visual complexity and color are the most important factors for people as they make quick first impressions. Three key notes from their research: highly colorful designs tend to be less appealing than less colorful; high visual complexity isn’t appealing to any age group; people older than 45 tend to prefer the least visually complex designs of all age groups tested.
Closeness Determines Relationships
As in life, you might say, the closer two or more things are to each other, the stronger their perceived relationship. When people view information elements (photos, captions, contact information, etc.) that are close together, they assume the elements are related. When organizing information, visually place related objects in the same area by compartmentalizing, juxtaposing, and generally visually organizing all elements on your page.
People Love Curves
Note that the logos for some of the world’s largest companies—Apple, Nike, McDonald’s, Disney, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Comcast—use very curvaceous designs. And note that some of the products you use most—cell phones, vehicles, shoes—have rounded edges and curves. Research has shown, regardless of product type, shape type, or the clustering or organization of shapes, people generally prefer rounded, curved edges to hard, straight edges for most purposes.
Affordances Are Important
People make very real decisions about how something may be used based on how they look. A “visual affordance” is a visual cue that tells people what to do with something. If, for example, you see a handle on a door, you would usually assume that the door pulls, not pushes. When designing information, note that people will make assumptions about certain shapes (octagon=stop), colors (red=bad), textures (shadow gradients=click or press) and so forth. Your design choices will inherently tell people what they can (or can’t) do with something based strictly on how they look.