Application of Gestalt Principles to the web design

Q. Find an online design example (good or bad) of three Gestalt Principles. Be sure to provide hyperlinks to the source and explain why you believe it is a good example.

The arrangement of web-based database is very closely related to the web design. In fact, the traditional evaluation of the interface of the web site has mainly focused on the practical aspect of it. As the approach of the theories of “visual perception” has been paid attention, however, the theories of Gestalt Principles have become important in terms of the creative activity in web design.

In this article, there are three Gestalt Principles: Figure/Ground, Similarity, Proximity and Continuity, and Closure, Area and Symmetry.

For me, one of the most important factors to grasp the newcomer’s attention to the web site is that how comfortably the Internet user feels in searching for the specific information or just surfing on the web site. With this perspective, “Continuity” of Gestalt principles comes to me very understandably.

It is said that continuity occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object.

Look at the example of this principle at the web site, www.desert-divers.com




As a team project of Contents Creation class this quarter, our team has worked on the “the desert reclamation” project. As I have searched for similar web sites to this topic, I found this site interesting me.

In terms of continuity principle, this web site seems to be well-organized.
The menu bar is located both on the top and the left, and at the middle of page, there are brief explanations of each category, along with a relative picture. First of all, because these are on the front page, it is not needed to try to find and click one of the several categories tiresomely to get more specific information. More importantly, because each explanation has the same design format, and it is continuously formed vertically (from the top to the bottom), it is very easy and comfortable to figure out what contents are in each categories at the first glimpse.