Week4- Gestalt Theory and HCI Design Principles

User interface is the first contact between designers and internet users. Designers have to try their best to make nice communication with their users. In fact, the user interface on the primary stage easily scared users because we need to know a series of commands and a few mistakes would possibly make the computer out of control. More unreasonably, the computer can’t indicate those mistakes to users. As Internet popularizes and e-commerce prevails, human-computer interface design is worth noticing for designers. All designers are always thinking what is the most friendly and understandable interface to users.


In my opinion, Gestalt theory is closely related to human-computer interface design principles. One of Gestalt’s principles, continuity, is also applied in HCI design. As we know, people like continuity in their interactions; thus, when they visit some website, they hope that they can feel seamless and operate every function effortlessly. In order to get continuity, designers need to keep the website’s consistency (HCI). Using relative menus, color, fonts, and icons helps users have a great trip in their websites. In Gestalt theory, it indicates that people used to using their imagination to make things to be organized, so HCI should apply some relative icons, fonts to connect its functions.


Moreover, the similarity and proximity principles will help human-computer interface Design. They will lead users to get familiar with the interface, make those contents to seem more manageable and more relative. Others principles like Continuity or Closure, Area & Symmetry help people classify and help people organize things effortlessly and effectively. Besides, the principle of figure & ground is so interesting to me because it make me to understand that sometimes we haven’t comprehensively seen the entire thing.


To sum up, some psychological theory will support practical works and can be applied in other research area. I think that designers have to understand Gestalt principles because it will help designers attain their goals efficiently and easily.