Visual Thinking for Design

Increasingly, designers need to present information in ways that aid their audiences thinking process. Fortunately, results from the relatively new science of human visual perception provide valuable guidance. In Visual Thinking for Design, Colin Ware takes what we now know about perception, cognition, and attention and transforms it into concrete advice that designers can directly apply. He demonstrates how designs can be considered as tools for cognition - extensions of the viewers brain in much the same way that a hammer is an extension of the users hand. Experienced professional designers and students alike will learn how to maximize the power of the information tools they design for the people who use them. Presents visual thinking as a complex process that can be supported in every stage using specific design techniques. Provides practical, task-oriented information for designers and software developers charged with design responsibilities. Includes hundreds of examples, many in the form of integrated text and full-color diagrams. Steeped in the principles of active vision, which views graphic designs as cognitive tools.

Colin Ware is Director of the Data Visualization Research Lab at the University of New Hampshire, where he specializes in advanced data visualization and applications of visualization for oceanography.

Preface	p. ix
Visual Queries	p. 1
The Apparatus and Process of Seeing	p. 5
The Act of Perception	p. 8
Bottom-Up	p. 10
Top-Down	p. 12
Implications for Design	p. 14
Nested Loops	p. 17
Distributed Cognition	p. 19
Conclusion	p. 20
What We Can Easily See	p. 23
The Machinery of Low-Level Feature Analysis	p. 25
What and Where Pathways	p. 26
Eye Movement Planning	p. 26
What Stands Out = What We Can Bias for	p. 27
Lessons for Design	p. 33
Motion	p. 36
Visual Search Strategies and Skills	p. 37
The Detection Field	p. 37
The Visual Search Process	p. 39
Using Multiscale Structure to Design for Search	p. 40
Conclusion	p. 41
Structuring Two-Dimensional Space	p. 43
2.5D Space	p. 44
The Pattern-Processing Machinery	p. 46
The Binding Problem: Features to Contours	p. 46
The Generalized Contour	p. 49
Texture Regions	p. 50
Interference and Selective Tuning	p. 51
Patterns, Channels, and Attention	p. 52
Intermediate Patterns	p. 53
Pattern Learning	p. 54
Serial Processing	p. 55
Visual Pattern Queries and the Apprehendable Chunk	p. 55
Multi-chunk Queries	p. 56
Spatial Layout	p. 56
Horizontal and Vertical	p. 57
Pattern for Design	p. 58
Examples of Pattern Queries with Common Graphical Artifacts	p. 60
Semantic Pattern Mappings	p. 62
Color	p. 65
The Color-Processing Machinery	p. 66
Opponent Process Theory	p. 68
Channel Properties	p. 69
Principles for Design	p. 75
Showing Detail	p. 75
Color-Coding Information	p. 77
Large and Small Areas	p. 77
Emphasis and Highlighting	p. 78
Color Sequences	p. 80
Color on Shaded Surfaces	p. 83
Semantics of Color	p. 84
Conclusion	p. 84
Getting the Information: Visual Space and Time	p. 87
Depth Perception and Cue Theory	p. 89
Stereoscopic Depth	p. 94
Structure from Motion	p. 95
2.5D Design	p. 95
How Much of the Third Dimension?	p. 97
Affordances	p. 99
The Where Pathway	p. 100
Artificial Interactive Spaces	p. 102
Space Traversal and Cognitive Costs	p. 103
Conclusion	p. 105
Visual Objects, Words, and Meaning	p. 107
The Inferotemporal Cortex and the What Channel	p. 108
Generalized Views from Patterns	p. 109
Structured Objects	p. 110
Gist and Scene Perception	p. 112
Visual and Verbal Working Memory	p. 114
Verbal Working Memory	p. 115
Control of the Attention and the Cognitive Process	p. 115
Long-term Memory	p. 116
Priming	p. 118
Getting into Visual Working Memory	p. 118
Thinking in Action: Receiving a Cup of Coffee	p. 120
Elaborations and Implications for Design	p. 121
Make Objects Easy to Identify	p. 121
Novelty	p. 122
Images as Symbols	p. 123
Meaning and Emotion	p. 124
Imagery and Desire	p. 125
Conclusion	p. 126
Visual and Verbal Narrative	p. 129
Visual Thinking Versus Language-Based Thinking	p. 130
Learned Symbols	p. 131
Grammar and Logic	p. 132
Comparing and Contrasting the Verbal and Written Modes	p. 133
Linking Words and Images Through Diexis	p. 135
PowerPoint Presentations and Pointing	p. 136
Mirror Neurons: Copycat Cells	p. 137
Visual Narrative: Capturing the Cognitive Thread	p. 138
Q&A Patterns	p. 139
Framing	p. 139
FINSTs and Divided Attention	p. 140
Shot transitions	p. 141
Cartoons and Narrative Diagrams	p. 142
Single-frame Narratives	p. 144
Conclusion	p. 145
Creative Meta-Seeing	p. 147
Mental Imagery	p. 148
The Magic of the Scribble	p. 152
Diagrams are Ideas Made Concrete	p. 155
Requirements and Early Design	p. 156
Visual Task Analysis	p. 157
The Creative Design Loop	p. 158
Cognitive Economics of Design Sketching	p. 158
The Perceptual Critique	p. 160
Meta-seeing with Design Prototypes	p. 162
Visual Skill Development	p. 163
Conclusion	p. 164
The Dance of Meaning	p. 165
Review	p. 166
Implications	p. 172
Design to Support Pattern Finding	p. 172
Optimizing the Cognitive Process	p. 174
Learning and the Economics of Cognition	p. 177
Attention and the Cognitive Thread	p. 179
What's Next?	p. 181
Index	p. 183
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Visual Thinking for Design

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