Week 5: Seeing Without Fully Understanding

This week was a focus on the design principles, and I was struck by how much of this is intuitive to the user. When we look at a bad website, we don't think, "That hierarchy is amazingly designed. The golden ratio is clearly what was used to create this logo." We don't understand, but our senses intuitively are drawn to those things that follow our design principles and reject those things that do not. In effect, the user has already assigned an evaluation to your product before using it. While using it may be enough to overcome a bad initial evaluation, it also may not be able to. I just find it fascinating how instinctual this study is, and how by perfecting what we do to improve the design, the more we tap in to that subconscious that is first deciding if we trust this website or product.

When I have designed in the past, some has been based on actual rules, but some has just been me trying to judge what looks good versus what does not. By learning these principles, hopefully this will eliminate the guesswork and actually be able to provide them with a product that they are pleased with and to which they will want to come back.

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