June 27, 2023 • 18 mins
Erin Malone discusses her book chapter "Follow These Principles of Gestalt for Better UX Designs."
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Episode Transcript
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Dan Berlin (00:14):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of
the 97 UX Things podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. I'm joined this week byErin Malone, who wrote the
chapter "Follow These Principlesof Gestalt for Better UX".
Welcome, Erin.
Erin Malone (00:28):
Hey, Dan. How are you?
Dan Berlin (00:29):
All right. Thank you for joining the podcast. Can you
please tell us a little bitabout yourself and your UX
Erin Malone (00:36):
Sure, I would say I got started in UX before it was
journey?
UX. I was a print designer, Iwas working in advertising. I
decided to go back to gradschool. During the time I was in
grad school, I discovered thisthing called HyperCard. And I
wanted to do my master's thesisin that tool, because I had
(01:01):
variety of media - I had video,I had sound, I had... I was
doing it on a series ofmagazines. It was a design
history piece. So I had themagazines and still images. I
did a full-library sciencecataloging of the magazines for
the Cary library, I went to gradschool at Rochester Institute of
(01:21):
Technology. So I hacked togetherwhat would now be called a new
media degree, and two classes inthe computer science department
and in computer graphicsdepartment and the digital
photography. Then, I was ingraphic design and sort of put
this together. While I was inschool, I started working at
(01:42):
Kodak doing some touchscreenkiosk work. I ended up working
there after graduation foralmost two years and moved out
to the Bay Area here in SanFrancisco, where I'm based, to
work on Adobe's first website.
That was in 1995, when thedot-com boom was just barely
getting started, and we didn'tknow what we were doing. We were
(02:05):
just designing things, throwingit up on the internet, getting
feedback making changes. Therewas no process. There was, you
know... It was sort of a freefor all. And through that time,
and then eventually moving to astartup and helping codify some
of the kinds of processes thatwe do. I'm a big one for making
(02:27):
diagrams, maps, and things likethat to visualize how things
work. Then, just a lot ofcommunity engagement with peers
to help define stuff. So I'vebeen working, I would say, in
this space since about '92. So,that's a long time. I've seen a
(02:49):
lot of changes. I've seen it gofrom this sort of grassroots,
cowboy mentality... to wherefolks are writing books about
how things work and what peopleneed to know. There's now
degrees - and university degreesand master's programs in in the
space. It's a real thing. It's areal field. I've been lucky
(03:13):
enough to be along for the rideand kind of helping separate it.
I'm still doing it.
was in a Morecambegroup. And the website,
essentially, it was brochure -where to promote the
(03:36):
application. So, I wasn'tworking on applications. We were
just we were doing... We wereconcerned with information
architecture, as opposed to themore robust interaction design
because it was really all aboutcontent. When I moved to the
startup, it was moreinteractive. I was the first
(03:56):
designer in an engineeringgroup. I just worked with those
folks to try things, they wouldbuild them, and we would test
it. Well, we actually didn't doany user testing. That didn't
exist yet. We started that abouta year after I had been working
with this engineering team. Itcame down to building
(04:18):
relationships, which is reallywhat it still is. It's about
relationships and buildingtrust, so that people trust you
and respect the qualificationsand the experience you have. But
they have to trust you in orderto believe in that, and trust
that you know what you're doing.
And that it's. It's built onexperience, or testing or data,
(04:39):
you know, whatever. If theydon't trust you, they're not
going to listen to you.
Dan Berlin (04:46):
Yeah.
Erin Malone (04:46):
So yeah, it's really about those
relationships. It was toughbecause at one point we got
bought, and the company thatbought us... So, we were an
engineering-driven organizationwith design embedded in
engineering. I had this group offolks that I worked with that
really trusted me. I'd beenworking for two years. Then, we
got merged with two othercompanies. One that was
(05:10):
marketing-driven. Soadvertising-marketing-driven,
and the other was news outletpeople. So it was editorial, and
this was AltaVista. So, theybought - this was back in the
late '99. CMGI bought us, theymerged AltaVista, the search
engine, which wasmarketing-driven because of paid
(05:30):
search with Zip2 - which iswhere I was, which was
engineering-driven. We weredoing city guides, Yellow Pages,
maps, directions stuff. Then,they brought in folks from CBS
Sports Center to create anewsroom. So, you have these
three cultures working togetherthat absolutely did not work
(05:51):
together. The advertising sidewas standing over our shoulder,
"Going move this here. Move thisthere, etc." And the Sports
Center people are like, "We gotto get this out. We're on
deadline." Because they're usedto, you know, "We've got to drop
this and got to scoop all theother news people." Luckily, I
was in the engineering group,with engineers who trusted me.
(06:12):
And they were like, "We're notgoing to move this. Have you
gotten this approved throughErin?" So, I had a lot of
support during - I mean, it wasvery frustrating for other
people. But we had to do a lotof education for these other
groups. Because this was thebeginning. Nobody knew what this
was. Nobody knew why design,interaction design, and user
experience design mattered.
Because it wasn't seen as adifferentiator yet.
Dan Berlin (06:36):
Yep, you raise a great point about the need to
build those relationships overtime. So that you have the trust
of your fellow engineers,designers, researchers, and
everyone who makes this happen.
Because UX is necessarily a teamsport.
Erin Malone (06:50):
Absolutely.
Dan Berlin (06:51):
Yeah. So, thank you for that. Let's dig into your
chapter, "Follow ThesePrinciples of Gestalt for Better
UX". Tell us about that, please.
Erin Malone (07:00):
Oh, awesome. I love Gestalt. So Gestalt principles
are often taught to graphicdesigners, but not necessarily
folks practicing UX design. AndGestalt, if you want to look
that up, the Oxford languagedictionary defines it as "an
organized whole that's perceivedas more than the sum of its
(07:20):
parts." It's a set of principlesthat were developed and codified
by a group of differentpsychologists at the turn of the
century. They were looking athow perception affects how
people understand the worldaround them. So, these
principles essentially help usunderstand how people make
(07:45):
meaning to the things that theyare seeing. So as a designer, we
can leverage that perceptualunderstanding, and create more
meaningful and usefulexperiences by taking a look at
these different principles andapplying them to our designs.
What that does is... We leveragewhat's already happening in
(08:05):
someone's brain, and how theireyes and their brain are
interpreting what they'reseeing. We can leverage that in
order to help people betterunderstand what to do, how to
work controls, how to understandthe content that might be on a
page that's grouped together.
That means we don't have to workas hard as designers trying to
(08:27):
explain everything.
Dan Berlin (08:31):
Right. Yeah, it sounds like that's the microcosm
of UX for visual spaceperception. In UX, we're always
trying to leverage the strengthsof the brain and bolster the
weaknesses. What we're talkingabout here is specifically for
that visual perception andleveraging our innate
(08:51):
capabilities to uncoverunderstanding and meaning.
Erin Malone (08:55):
Absolutely, absolutely. People automatically
group things together if they'reclose. So, we can simplify their
need to have to deconstruct whatsomething means, by grouping
things together that should betogether. We can use it- we use
these principles to inferaffordances for how things work.
(09:17):
So, it's not just a visual. It'salso to help folks understand
the workings. So, an example Ilike to share with my students -
I teach interaction designhistory, as well as visual
design - is... During World WarTwo, there were a lot of plane
crashes that happened, and theyattributed a lot of those to
(09:41):
pilot error. There was aresearcher who was looking into
this named Alphonse Chapanis. Idon't know if that's how you
pronounce his name. It's C H A PA N I S, he was French. He
basically showed that the piloterror could be reduced by
redesigning the cockpit for moreintuitive design. What he had
seen was that the controls forthe flaps and the landing gear
(10:04):
looked exactly the same. Theywere grouped together, they
looked identical. In asplit-second decision, people
were picking the wrong control,and they were crashing. So, he
changed the shape of thecontrols and the placement. So
that they no longer looked likethey went together, they no
(10:24):
longer look the same. And thatcut down on these crashes. And
Paul Fitts, and a lot of us haveheard of Fitts's Law. And that
notion that the smallersomething is - and the farther
away it is from where you start- the less likely someone is
going to be successful atselecting that thing. Paul Fitz
(10:46):
was doing similar research. Hewas looking at- if we organize
and optimize the design bygrouping things by type in
meaning - and basically, he'sthinking about the Gestalt
principles - then, we couldreduce errors. You can apply
this to controls in userexperience, to button groupings
(11:08):
to... You think about settingsthat's really full of all kinds
of things that can be grouped.
By pulling these thingstogether, we automatically tell
people without words that theyhave similar meaning. Or they go
together. Or have a similaraction or interaction. There's a
bunch of sub-principles underthis sort of larger principle
(11:31):
around grouping. It's thingslike similarity. So if things
are designed in a similar way,then we can infer that they will
work in a similar way. If theyare closer together, then we can
infer that they have a similarmeaning or a similar type of
understanding. If things moveall at the same time, we call
(11:53):
that common fate. So if you graba bunch of things on your
desktop and move them, we inferthat they're all going to move
in the same direction and thingslike that. So, figure-ground
things. We use that a lot withpop-ups, modals, and stuff like
that - where parts of the screenare pushed back, and other parts
are brighter. That is using theconcept of figure-ground. So,
(12:17):
there's all these visualprinciples in this Gestalt
family that we can takeadvantage of when we're
designing.
Dan Berlin (12:26):
Are there ones that you see employed more than
others? And that we're better atusing in our minds, that we use
more often?
Erin Malone (12:36):
I think similarity is one that either people really
get, or they totally don't get.
And I mean, designers - notpeople, not general people.
Because I often see novicedesigners using all different
kinds of shapes of buttons,different colors, and placing
them in different places. It'slike is, "Are these all intended
(12:57):
to do the same thing? You clickon it and something happens?
Well, then they should bedesigned the same."
Dan Berlin (13:03):
Yeah.
Erin Malone (13:05):
I think proximity is probably the most powerful
because it supports Fitts Law.
We've got things that are closertogether that imply groupings.
We see that in how toolbars areput together in all kinds of
applications. And the thingsthat are grouped together,
there's an implicitunderstanding that they work in
(13:26):
a similar way. So, I thinkthat's one that we use all the
time. And we don't even thinkabout it. But if we think about
what the principle is, andreally that along with Fitts's
law, then we can be smarterabout the nuances of how these
things are put together. Youknow when something isn't right,
(13:46):
it stands out like a sore thumb,if it's something that- where it
should be in the grouping, andit's off by itself. You're like,
"Why is that over there?" Or itdoes something different, and
you're like "What?" It causes abit of cognitive dissonance.
Dan Berlin (14:04):
Are there other examples where you've seen newer
designers, where there wereopportunities to employ the
Gestalt Laws? Are there examplesthat you can convey?
Erin Malone (14:14):
I think there's one of the principles around
symmetry, in order like... Welike to organize things, we like
the symmetry. That principlecoupled with good typography,
readability, and legibility canwork really well together. I
think that's an area where thedesign and the visual design -
(14:37):
that I'm seeing out in the world- is not as strong as it could
be. I hate center text. I don'tthink blocks of type should be
centered, because it reduceslegibility. It creates awkward
and an ugly white spaces. And itjust violates that idea of
symmetry and order. Why wouldyou purposely design something
(14:57):
to make it harder for people toread? It drives me crazy.
Dan Berlin (15:01):
You and me both.
Erin Malone (15:02):
That's one of my pet peeves.
Dan Berlin (15:04):
It's more natural for our eye to go back to the
same place, where it was at thebeginning of the line. Not
having to search for thebeginning of the sentence.
Erin Malone (15:13):
Absolutely. The thing is, people don't read
whole words - they scan and theyjump, and you need a landing
place. If that landing place iscontinuing to move, it's
frustrating and you slow someonedown. People don't spend a lot
of time on the web and on thingsanyway. But why would you make
it harder? A headline, that'sfine to be centered. But a block
(15:37):
of text should never becentered, especially if it's in
a column that just really pushesout that that dissonance. One of
the things that I've beenstudying... I've been writing a
book about women in the field. Icame across some work by a woman
named Sharon Poggenpohl, who isa longtime educator at Illinois
Institute of Technology, and wasat the Hong Kong University
(16:01):
Interaction Design. She had beenworking with another designer,
educator named Jin Soo Kim -thinking about time in animation
within the Gestalt principles,like closeness of time,
similarity of motion, andproximity of motion. There's not
a lot written about it. But Ireally think, given how robust
(16:23):
our ability to do interactionsand animations, is that that's
something that should beconsidered as to be added to the
suite of these principles fromthe early 20th century.
Dan Berlin (16:36):
That's a great point. Also, when you consider
service design, there's atemporal aspect to service
design - where you do one thingand there's time passes. You may
interact somewhere else that'sstill Gestalt, there's still a
connection there that you wantthe user to have.
Erin Malone (16:54):
Absolutely, I hadn't even thought about it for
service design. But that is sotrue, that closeness of time.
And that immediacy of "If thishappens, you want to follow up
with this other thing that'srelated." So you can use these
principles in less physical,less tangible types of
(17:14):
experiences.
Dan Berlin (17:15):
So, we're just about out of time here. Erin, was
there anything else that youwere hoping to convey here at
the podcast?
Erin Malone (17:20):
I think everyone should double down and learn
these principles. I'm a bigpattern library person. One of
the last principles that is inthe suite of principles is this
notion of past experience.
People come to the thing thatyou're designed with past
experiences, and you want toleverage that. That's what the
pattern libraries do, as well asleverage that communal learning
(17:42):
across a suite of experiencesover time and support that. I
think we would do well to havebasics of Gestalt to be taught
to every single UX designer outthere.
Dan Berlin (17:58):
Agreed 100%. It helps us set those expectations,
which is the whole point of UX.
Erin Malone (18:02):
And I think our visual design would get better
along the way, too.
Dan Berlin (18:07):
Great. Well, Erin.
Thank you so much for joining mehere today. It's been it's been
great chatting with you.
Erin Malone (18:12):
Oh, thank you. It's been great to be able to talk
about some of these ideas andconcepts.
Dan Berlin (18:18):
My guest today has been Erin Malone, who wrote the
chapter "Follow These Principlesof Gestalt for Better UX".
Thanks for listening, everyone.
You've been listening to the 97UX Things podcast, a companion
to the book 97 Things Every UXPractitioner Should Know -
published by O'Reilly andavailable at your local
bookshop. All book royalties goto UX nonprofits, as well any
funds raised by this podcast.
(18:41):
The theme music is "Moisturizethe Situation" by Consider the
Source. I'm your host and bookeditor, Dan Berlin. Please
remember to find the needs inyour community and fill them
with your best work. Thanks forlistening
Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of
the 97 UX Things podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. I'm joined this week byErin Malone, who wrote the
chapter "Follow These Principlesof Gestalt for Better UX".
Welcome, Erin.
Erin Malone (00:28):
Hey, Dan. How are you?
Dan Berlin (00:29):
All right. Thank you for joining the podcast. Can you
please tell us a little bitabout yourself and your UX
Erin Malone (00:36):
Sure, I would say I got started in UX before it was
journey?
UX. I was a print designer, Iwas working in advertising. I
decided to go back to gradschool. During the time I was in
grad school, I discovered thisthing called HyperCard. And I
wanted to do my master's thesisin that tool, because I had
(01:01):
variety of media - I had video,I had sound, I had... I was
doing it on a series ofmagazines. It was a design
history piece. So I had themagazines and still images. I
did a full-library sciencecataloging of the magazines for
the Cary library, I went to gradschool at Rochester Institute of
(01:21):
Technology. So I hacked togetherwhat would now be called a new
media degree, and two classes inthe computer science department
and in computer graphicsdepartment and the digital
photography. Then, I was ingraphic design and sort of put
this together. While I was inschool, I started working at
(01:42):
Kodak doing some touchscreenkiosk work. I ended up working
there after graduation foralmost two years and moved out
to the Bay Area here in SanFrancisco, where I'm based, to
work on Adobe's first website.
That was in 1995, when thedot-com boom was just barely
getting started, and we didn'tknow what we were doing. We were
(02:05):
just designing things, throwingit up on the internet, getting
feedback making changes. Therewas no process. There was, you
know... It was sort of a freefor all. And through that time,
and then eventually moving to astartup and helping codify some
of the kinds of processes thatwe do. I'm a big one for making
(02:27):
diagrams, maps, and things likethat to visualize how things
work. Then, just a lot ofcommunity engagement with peers
to help define stuff. So I'vebeen working, I would say, in
this space since about '92. So,that's a long time. I've seen a
(02:49):
lot of changes. I've seen it gofrom this sort of grassroots,
cowboy mentality... to wherefolks are writing books about
how things work and what peopleneed to know. There's now
degrees - and university degreesand master's programs in in the
space. It's a real thing. It's areal field. I've been lucky
(03:13):
enough to be along for the rideand kind of helping separate it.
I'm still doing it.
was in a Morecambegroup. And the website,
essentially, it was brochure -where to promote the
(03:36):
application. So, I wasn'tworking on applications. We were
just we were doing... We wereconcerned with information
architecture, as opposed to themore robust interaction design
because it was really all aboutcontent. When I moved to the
startup, it was moreinteractive. I was the first
(03:56):
designer in an engineeringgroup. I just worked with those
folks to try things, they wouldbuild them, and we would test
it. Well, we actually didn't doany user testing. That didn't
exist yet. We started that abouta year after I had been working
with this engineering team. Itcame down to building
(04:18):
relationships, which is reallywhat it still is. It's about
relationships and buildingtrust, so that people trust you
and respect the qualificationsand the experience you have. But
they have to trust you in orderto believe in that, and trust
that you know what you're doing.
And that it's. It's built onexperience, or testing or data,
(04:39):
you know, whatever. If theydon't trust you, they're not
going to listen to you.
Dan Berlin (04:46):
Yeah.
Erin Malone (04:46):
So yeah, it's really about those
relationships. It was toughbecause at one point we got
bought, and the company thatbought us... So, we were an
engineering-driven organizationwith design embedded in
engineering. I had this group offolks that I worked with that
really trusted me. I'd beenworking for two years. Then, we
got merged with two othercompanies. One that was
(05:10):
marketing-driven. Soadvertising-marketing-driven,
and the other was news outletpeople. So it was editorial, and
this was AltaVista. So, theybought - this was back in the
late '99. CMGI bought us, theymerged AltaVista, the search
engine, which wasmarketing-driven because of paid
(05:30):
search with Zip2 - which iswhere I was, which was
engineering-driven. We weredoing city guides, Yellow Pages,
maps, directions stuff. Then,they brought in folks from CBS
Sports Center to create anewsroom. So, you have these
three cultures working togetherthat absolutely did not work
(05:51):
together. The advertising sidewas standing over our shoulder,
"Going move this here. Move thisthere, etc." And the Sports
Center people are like, "We gotto get this out. We're on
deadline." Because they're usedto, you know, "We've got to drop
this and got to scoop all theother news people." Luckily, I
was in the engineering group,with engineers who trusted me.
(06:12):
And they were like, "We're notgoing to move this. Have you
gotten this approved throughErin?" So, I had a lot of
support during - I mean, it wasvery frustrating for other
people. But we had to do a lotof education for these other
groups. Because this was thebeginning. Nobody knew what this
was. Nobody knew why design,interaction design, and user
experience design mattered.
Because it wasn't seen as adifferentiator yet.
Dan Berlin (06:36):
Yep, you raise a great point about the need to
build those relationships overtime. So that you have the trust
of your fellow engineers,designers, researchers, and
everyone who makes this happen.
Because UX is necessarily a teamsport.
Erin Malone (06:50):
Absolutely.
Dan Berlin (06:51):
Yeah. So, thank you for that. Let's dig into your
chapter, "Follow ThesePrinciples of Gestalt for Better
UX". Tell us about that, please.
Erin Malone (07:00):
Oh, awesome. I love Gestalt. So Gestalt principles
are often taught to graphicdesigners, but not necessarily
folks practicing UX design. AndGestalt, if you want to look
that up, the Oxford languagedictionary defines it as "an
organized whole that's perceivedas more than the sum of its
(07:20):
parts." It's a set of principlesthat were developed and codified
by a group of differentpsychologists at the turn of the
century. They were looking athow perception affects how
people understand the worldaround them. So, these
principles essentially help usunderstand how people make
(07:45):
meaning to the things that theyare seeing. So as a designer, we
can leverage that perceptualunderstanding, and create more
meaningful and usefulexperiences by taking a look at
these different principles andapplying them to our designs.
What that does is... We leveragewhat's already happening in
(08:05):
someone's brain, and how theireyes and their brain are
interpreting what they'reseeing. We can leverage that in
order to help people betterunderstand what to do, how to
work controls, how to understandthe content that might be on a
page that's grouped together.
That means we don't have to workas hard as designers trying to
(08:27):
explain everything.
Dan Berlin (08:31):
Right. Yeah, it sounds like that's the microcosm
of UX for visual spaceperception. In UX, we're always
trying to leverage the strengthsof the brain and bolster the
weaknesses. What we're talkingabout here is specifically for
that visual perception andleveraging our innate
(08:51):
capabilities to uncoverunderstanding and meaning.
Erin Malone (08:55):
Absolutely, absolutely. People automatically
group things together if they'reclose. So, we can simplify their
need to have to deconstruct whatsomething means, by grouping
things together that should betogether. We can use it- we use
these principles to inferaffordances for how things work.
(09:17):
So, it's not just a visual. It'salso to help folks understand
the workings. So, an example Ilike to share with my students -
I teach interaction designhistory, as well as visual
design - is... During World WarTwo, there were a lot of plane
crashes that happened, and theyattributed a lot of those to
(09:41):
pilot error. There was aresearcher who was looking into
this named Alphonse Chapanis. Idon't know if that's how you
pronounce his name. It's C H A PA N I S, he was French. He
basically showed that the piloterror could be reduced by
redesigning the cockpit for moreintuitive design. What he had
seen was that the controls forthe flaps and the landing gear
(10:04):
looked exactly the same. Theywere grouped together, they
looked identical. In asplit-second decision, people
were picking the wrong control,and they were crashing. So, he
changed the shape of thecontrols and the placement. So
that they no longer looked likethey went together, they no
(10:24):
longer look the same. And thatcut down on these crashes. And
Paul Fitts, and a lot of us haveheard of Fitts's Law. And that
notion that the smallersomething is - and the farther
away it is from where you start- the less likely someone is
going to be successful atselecting that thing. Paul Fitz
(10:46):
was doing similar research. Hewas looking at- if we organize
and optimize the design bygrouping things by type in
meaning - and basically, he'sthinking about the Gestalt
principles - then, we couldreduce errors. You can apply
this to controls in userexperience, to button groupings
(11:08):
to... You think about settingsthat's really full of all kinds
of things that can be grouped.
By pulling these thingstogether, we automatically tell
people without words that theyhave similar meaning. Or they go
together. Or have a similaraction or interaction. There's a
bunch of sub-principles underthis sort of larger principle
(11:31):
around grouping. It's thingslike similarity. So if things
are designed in a similar way,then we can infer that they will
work in a similar way. If theyare closer together, then we can
infer that they have a similarmeaning or a similar type of
understanding. If things moveall at the same time, we call
(11:53):
that common fate. So if you graba bunch of things on your
desktop and move them, we inferthat they're all going to move
in the same direction and thingslike that. So, figure-ground
things. We use that a lot withpop-ups, modals, and stuff like
that - where parts of the screenare pushed back, and other parts
are brighter. That is using theconcept of figure-ground. So,
(12:17):
there's all these visualprinciples in this Gestalt
family that we can takeadvantage of when we're
designing.
Dan Berlin (12:26):
Are there ones that you see employed more than
others? And that we're better atusing in our minds, that we use
more often?
Erin Malone (12:36):
I think similarity is one that either people really
get, or they totally don't get.
And I mean, designers - notpeople, not general people.
Because I often see novicedesigners using all different
kinds of shapes of buttons,different colors, and placing
them in different places. It'slike is, "Are these all intended
(12:57):
to do the same thing? You clickon it and something happens?
Well, then they should bedesigned the same."
Dan Berlin (13:03):
Yeah.
Erin Malone (13:05):
I think proximity is probably the most powerful
because it supports Fitts Law.
We've got things that are closertogether that imply groupings.
We see that in how toolbars areput together in all kinds of
applications. And the thingsthat are grouped together,
there's an implicitunderstanding that they work in
(13:26):
a similar way. So, I thinkthat's one that we use all the
time. And we don't even thinkabout it. But if we think about
what the principle is, andreally that along with Fitts's
law, then we can be smarterabout the nuances of how these
things are put together. Youknow when something isn't right,
(13:46):
it stands out like a sore thumb,if it's something that- where it
should be in the grouping, andit's off by itself. You're like,
"Why is that over there?" Or itdoes something different, and
you're like "What?" It causes abit of cognitive dissonance.
Dan Berlin (14:04):
Are there other examples where you've seen newer
designers, where there wereopportunities to employ the
Gestalt Laws? Are there examplesthat you can convey?
Erin Malone (14:14):
I think there's one of the principles around
symmetry, in order like... Welike to organize things, we like
the symmetry. That principlecoupled with good typography,
readability, and legibility canwork really well together. I
think that's an area where thedesign and the visual design -
(14:37):
that I'm seeing out in the world- is not as strong as it could
be. I hate center text. I don'tthink blocks of type should be
centered, because it reduceslegibility. It creates awkward
and an ugly white spaces. And itjust violates that idea of
symmetry and order. Why wouldyou purposely design something
(14:57):
to make it harder for people toread? It drives me crazy.
Dan Berlin (15:01):
You and me both.
Erin Malone (15:02):
That's one of my pet peeves.
Dan Berlin (15:04):
It's more natural for our eye to go back to the
same place, where it was at thebeginning of the line. Not
having to search for thebeginning of the sentence.
Erin Malone (15:13):
Absolutely. The thing is, people don't read
whole words - they scan and theyjump, and you need a landing
place. If that landing place iscontinuing to move, it's
frustrating and you slow someonedown. People don't spend a lot
of time on the web and on thingsanyway. But why would you make
it harder? A headline, that'sfine to be centered. But a block
(15:37):
of text should never becentered, especially if it's in
a column that just really pushesout that that dissonance. One of
the things that I've beenstudying... I've been writing a
book about women in the field. Icame across some work by a woman
named Sharon Poggenpohl, who isa longtime educator at Illinois
Institute of Technology, and wasat the Hong Kong University
(16:01):
Interaction Design. She had beenworking with another designer,
educator named Jin Soo Kim -thinking about time in animation
within the Gestalt principles,like closeness of time,
similarity of motion, andproximity of motion. There's not
a lot written about it. But Ireally think, given how robust
(16:23):
our ability to do interactionsand animations, is that that's
something that should beconsidered as to be added to the
suite of these principles fromthe early 20th century.
Dan Berlin (16:36):
That's a great point. Also, when you consider
service design, there's atemporal aspect to service
design - where you do one thingand there's time passes. You may
interact somewhere else that'sstill Gestalt, there's still a
connection there that you wantthe user to have.
Erin Malone (16:54):
Absolutely, I hadn't even thought about it for
service design. But that is sotrue, that closeness of time.
And that immediacy of "If thishappens, you want to follow up
with this other thing that'srelated." So you can use these
principles in less physical,less tangible types of
(17:14):
experiences.
Dan Berlin (17:15):
So, we're just about out of time here. Erin, was
there anything else that youwere hoping to convey here at
the podcast?
Erin Malone (17:20):
I think everyone should double down and learn
these principles. I'm a bigpattern library person. One of
the last principles that is inthe suite of principles is this
notion of past experience.
People come to the thing thatyou're designed with past
experiences, and you want toleverage that. That's what the
pattern libraries do, as well asleverage that communal learning
(17:42):
across a suite of experiencesover time and support that. I
think we would do well to havebasics of Gestalt to be taught
to every single UX designer outthere.
Dan Berlin (17:58):
Agreed 100%. It helps us set those expectations,
which is the whole point of UX.
Erin Malone (18:02):
And I think our visual design would get better
along the way, too.
Dan Berlin (18:07):
Great. Well, Erin.
Thank you so much for joining mehere today. It's been it's been
great chatting with you.
Erin Malone (18:12):
Oh, thank you. It's been great to be able to talk
about some of these ideas andconcepts.
Dan Berlin (18:18):
My guest today has been Erin Malone, who wrote the
chapter "Follow These Principlesof Gestalt for Better UX".
Thanks for listening, everyone.
You've been listening to the 97UX Things podcast, a companion
to the book 97 Things Every UXPractitioner Should Know -
published by O'Reilly andavailable at your local
bookshop. All book royalties goto UX nonprofits, as well any
funds raised by this podcast.
(18:41):
The theme music is "Moisturizethe Situation" by Consider the
Source. I'm your host and bookeditor, Dan Berlin. Please
remember to find the needs inyour community and fill them
with your best work. Thanks forlistening
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