Design For The Human Mind
From the category archives:
The dashed line is exquisitely rich with information. A line formed from a continuous series of dashes is diminished in strength when compared to a solid line, yet in terms of visual language, it is just as powerful. The weakness of the dashed line is it’s strength.
Like many people, I’ve always had an aesthetic aversion to the yellow smiley face. Not only did I find it visually unappealing, but due to overuse I thought of the smiley as a trite visual cliché. But that was the old me.
Interactions are an important part of website design because they engage the user at a deep level. The act of getting physically involved (even if it’s just a mouse click or gesture) can potentially improve cognitive performance. Evidence that the body is intricately tied up with the mind is showing up throughout cognitive research. This […]
Although this piece of news could shock anyone involved in visual communication, I’ll say it anyway. It’s time to realize that audiences do not attend a presentation because of the slides. They attend because they want to hear what the speaker has to say.
If you’re interested in improving the positive appeal of your visual communications, then you may want to understand how to make them more fluent.
We humans are at the mercy of a phenomenon called the split-attention effect. Many conventional information graphics, animations, visualizations and multimedia presentations demand that viewers simultaneously split their attention between divergent sources of information.
When you know how people understand graphics, yours will be more effective. That's why I wrote Visual Language For Designers. This website is an extension of my book. Hope you enjoy it! -- Connie Malamed
