This post is part of the ongoing series of reading reflections on HCI papers and articles. You can find the other posts ‘here.’
Visual Design Basics
Available online at https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/visual-design.html.
This article goes further into the basics of visual design from the ‘5 Principles of Visual Design in UX’. It covers the basic elements of visual design and the principles that can be applied to them. It also provides an example of how to pull it all together. Of all the principles, I was most confused and overwhelmed by the principles of gestalt for visual design. I felt both the lecture and my reading on Gestalt principles introduced a lot of abstract design concepts, which I found awkward to relate to UI design.
I found other design elements and principles easier to grasp, and I related them to UI design. The example of the homepage helped me understand how to apply the principles to a real-world example. The principles of unity and similarity work well with functionally similar elements, using dominance and hierarchy to create a focal point for the user, and using contrast to make elements stand out. The principles of balance and scale are more abstract but still relevant to UI design.