没有合适的资源?快使用搜索试试~ 我知道了~
首页Visual Thinking for Design
Visual Thinking for Design
需积分: 10 15 下载量 65 浏览量
更新于2023-03-16
评论
收藏 16.71MB PDF 举报
Visual Thinking for Design (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies)
资源详情
资源评论
资源推荐
ix
Preface
ere has been a revolution in our understanding of human perception that
goes under the name “ active vision. ” Active vision means that we should
think about graphic designs as cognitive tools, enhancing and extending
our brains. Although we can, to some extent, form mental images in our
heads, we do much better when those images are out in the world, on paper
or computer screen. Diagrams, maps, web pages, information graphics,
visual instructions, and technical illustrations all help us to solve problems
through a process of visual thinking. We are all cognitive cyborgs in this
Internet age in the sense that we rely heavily on cognitive tools to amplify
our mental abilities. Visual thinking tools are especially important because
they harness the visual pattern fi nding part of the brain. Almost half the
brain is devoted to the visual sense and the visual brain is exquisitely capa-
ble of interpreting graphical patterns, even scribbles, in many diff erent
ways. Often, to see a pattern is to understand the solution to a problem.
e active vision revolution is all about understanding perception as a
dynamic process. Scientists used to think that we had rich images of the
world in our heads built up from the information coming in through the
eyes. Now we know that we only have the illusion of seeing the world in
detail. In fact the brain grabs just those fragments that are needed to exe-
cute the current mental activity. e brain directs the eyes to move, tunes
up parts of itself to receive the expected input, and extracts exactly what
PRE-P370896.indd ixPRE-P370896.indd ix 1/24/2008 12:09:43 PM1/24/2008 12:09:43 PM
x
is needed for our current thinking activity, whether that is reading a map,
making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or looking at a poster. Our
impression of a rich detailed world comes from the fact that we have the
capability to extract anything we want at any moment through a move-
ment of the eye that is literally faster than thought. is is automatic and
so quick that we are unaware of doing it, giving us the illusion that we
see stable detailed reality everywhere. e process of visual thinking is a
kind of dance with the environment with some information stored inter-
nally and some externally and it is by understanding this dance that we
can understand how graphic designs gain their meaning.
Active vision has profound implications for design and this is the
subject of this book.
It is a book about how we think visually and what that understanding
can tell us about how to design visual images. Understanding active vision
tells us which colors and shapes will stand out clearly, how to organize
space, and when we should use images instead of words to convey an idea.
Early on in the writing and image creation process I decided to “ eat my
own dog food ” and apply active vision-based principles to the design of
this book. One of these principles being that when text and images are
related they should be placed in close proximity. is is not as easy as it
sounds. It turns out that there is a reason why there are labeled fi gure
legends in academic publishing (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). It makes the
job of the compositor much easier. A compositor is a person whose spe-
cialty is to pack images and words on the page without reading the text .
is leads to the labeled fi gure and the parenthetical phrase often found
in academic publishing, “ see Figure X ” . is formula means that Figure X
need not be on the same page as the accompanying text. It is a bad idea
from the design perspective and a good idea from the perspective of the
publisher. I decided to integrate text and words and avoid the use of “ see
Figure X ” and the result was a diffi cult process and some confl ict with
a modern publishing house that does not, for example, invite authors
to design meetings, even when the book is about design. e result is
something of a design compromise but I am grateful to the individuals at
Elsevier who helped me with what has been a challenging exercise.
ere are many people who have helped. Diane Cerra with Elsevier was
patient with the diffi cult demands I made and full of helpful advice when
I needed it. Denise Penrose guided me through the later stages and came
up with the compromise solution that is realized in these pages. Dennis
Schaefer and Alisa Andreola helped with the design. Mary James and Paul
Gottehrer provided cheerful and effi cient support through the detailed
PRE-P370896.indd xPRE-P370896.indd x 1/24/2008 12:09:44 PM1/24/2008 12:09:44 PM
Preface xi
editing the production process. My wife, Dianne Ramey, read the whole
thing twice and fi xed a very great number of grammar and punctuation
errors. I am very grateful to Paul Catanese of the New Media Department
at San Francisco State University and David Laidlaw of the Computer
Graphics Group at Brown University who provided content reviews
and told me what was clear and what was not. I did major revisions to
Chapters 3 and 8 as a result of their input.
is book is an introduction to what the burgeoning science of per-
ception can tell us about visual design. It is intended for anyone who does
design in a visual medium and it should be of special interest to anyone who
does graphic design for the internet or who designs information graphics
of one sort or another. Design can take ideas from anywhere, from art and
culture as well as particular design genres. Science can enrich the mix.
Colin Ware
January 2008
PRE-P370896.indd xiPRE-P370896.indd xi 1/24/2008 12:09:44 PM1/24/2008 12:09:44 PM
1
Visual Queries
When we are awake, with our eyes open, we have the impression that
we see the world vividly, completely, and in detail. But this impression is
dead wrong. As scientists have devised increasingly elaborate tests to fi nd
out what is stored in the brain about the state of the visual world at any
instant, the same answer has come back again and again—at any given
instant, we apprehend only a tiny amount of the information in our sur-
roundings, but it is usually just the right information to carry us through
the task of the moment.
We cannot even remember new faces unless we are specifi cally pay-
ing attention. Consider the following remarkable “ real world ” experiment
carried out by psychologists Daniel Simons and Daniel Levin.
A trained
actor approached an unsuspecting member of the public, map in hand
and in a crowded place with lots of pedestrian traffi c, and began to ask
for directions. en, by means of a clever maneuver involving two work-
men and a door, a second actor replaced the fi rst in the middle of the
conversation.
Daniel J. Simons and Daniel T. Levin.
1998. Failure to detect changes to
people during a real world interaction.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review .
5: 644–669.
CH01-P370896.indd 1CH01-P370896.indd 1 1/23/2008 6:48:55 PM1/23/2008 6:48:55 PM
剩余197页未读,继续阅读
qq_30531483
- 粉丝: 0
- 资源: 1
上传资源 快速赚钱
- 我的内容管理 收起
- 我的资源 快来上传第一个资源
- 我的收益 登录查看自己的收益
- 我的积分 登录查看自己的积分
- 我的C币 登录后查看C币余额
- 我的收藏
- 我的下载
- 下载帮助
会员权益专享
最新资源
- 27页智慧街道信息化建设综合解决方案.pptx
- 计算机二级Ms-Office选择题汇总.doc
- 单链表的插入和删除实验报告 (2).docx
- 单链表的插入和删除实验报告.pdf
- 物联网智能终端项目设备管理方案.pdf
- 如何打造品牌的模式.doc
- 样式控制与页面布局.pdf
- 武汉理工Java实验报告(二).docx
- 2021线上新品消费趋势报告.pdf
- 第3章 Matlab中的矩阵及其运算.docx
- 基于Web的人力资源管理系统的必要性和可行性.doc
- 基于一阶倒立摆的matlab仿真实验.doc
- 速运公司物流管理模式研究教材
- 大数据与管理.pptx
- 单片机课程设计之步进电机.doc
- 大数据与数据挖掘.pptx
资源上传下载、课程学习等过程中有任何疑问或建议,欢迎提出宝贵意见哦~我们会及时处理!
点击此处反馈
安全验证
文档复制为VIP权益,开通VIP直接复制
信息提交成功
评论0