Michael Risser's List: Design Theory

• Gestalt principles make clear how to distribute elements on the page, when and why to use line delineation, background shading, a gradient, or when and why to group things in an enclosure (or not).
• Human perception is governed by relationships; how things are similar or dissimilar, how they contrast or blend with one another, and how arrangements of things suggest hierarchies and are affected by context.
• Elements are perceived as either figures (distinct elements of focus) or ground (the background or landscape on which the figures rest).
• Determining the figure ground relationship is also the very first thing people do when they direct their gaze
• Our perception of the figure ground relationship allows us to organize what we see by how each object relates to others. The short and sweet version is: it allows us to determine what we’re supposed to look at and what we might safely ignore.
• when we are made to look at something unfamiliar, especially if it is a designed page, figure ground relationship clues determine the success of our experience.
• These relationships are determined both by contrast and by common conventions of human experience …and by other things, as well.

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