The Gestalt laws of grouping are a set of psychological principles that came out of the work of German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler in the early 20th century. They set out to understand how humans gain meaningful perceptions between objects from the world around them. Humans naturally perceive things as organized patterns and objects.
The word Gestalt is German for form or shape and it is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as:
Something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts.
Why the Gestalt principles are important in product development
Psychology plays a huge role in visual perception. When users see our software interface, they are looking for ways to add meaning to the elements in front of them. Knowing how our minds help us find meaning and attribute relationships in the world around us can help us create better products. Applying these principles can be compared to swimming in a river. When you violate these principles, you are swimming upstream against the current of human cognitive power. When they are followed, you are swimming with the current and facing little to no cognitive resistance from the stream.
The Principles
Proximity
Objects or shapes that are close to one another appear to form groups. The further apart objects are, the weaker the relationship between them becomes. It is a powerful principle that it overcomes other differences and similarities in the same group such as shape or color. In the example below, we see three groups with different shapes and colors. Before identifying differences within each group, proximity helps us identify them as related despite the differences within.
Similarity
All else being equal, our perception lends itself to see things that physically resemble each other as part of the same object or group. Things that affect how we assign a relationship between objects are size, color, and shape. In the example below, our minds assign a relationship between each type of shape and color even though they are not next to each other. There is a relationship created between the shape and colors.
Closure
The mind has a tendency to see complete figures or forms even if the picture is partially hidden, incomplete, or part of the information needed to make a complete picture lives in our memory. In the example below, our minds complete each shape to be perceived as a square, circle, and triangle even though the lines are not closed. The mere shape of the line is enough to allow us to perceive it as the shape itself.
Symmetry
The law of symmetry states that elements that are symmetrical to each other are perceived as belonging together regardless of their distance. Symmetric objects are perceived as stable and balanced. In the example below, even though we have two different triangles they are perceived as belonging together because of their symmetry to each other. Balance creates a perception of a relationship.
Common Fate
When visual elements are seen moving in the same direction at the same rate, our perception associates the movement as part of the same stimulus. A group of jets flying in formation is perceived to have a stronger relationship than if they were all flying in the same direction at different speeds.
Continuity
Lines are seen as following the smoothest path. When there is an intersection between two or more objects, our minds tend to perceive them as a single uninterrupted object. In the example below, the relationship between the blue curved line and the dark gray curved line is stronger than it is to the straight blue line. Even though the color shows the change in direction, the smoothest path for our mind is to follow the curved line.
Good Gestalt (Good form)
Objects are grouped together by our minds if they form a common, and simple pattern. This is our mind’s efficiency in simplifying shapes into simpler concepts in an attempt to make sense of what we are looking at. Our mind’s ability to reduce extraneous stimuli helps it create meaning in chaos to reduce cognitive overload. In the common example bellow, the mind reduces the complexity of the Olympics’ logo into five circles. Even though there is nothing separating them as circles, our brain can process them into simpler shapes to make it easier to understand the relationship.
Law of Past Experience
This law states that sometimes people use their past experience to add meaning and attribute relationship to objects. A common example is how we perceive letters. When a letter is missing, replaced or reordered, our minds help us fill in the gaps to add meaning to what we are looking at.
7H1S M355AGE C4N B3 R34D BY YU0
Applying the principles in design
In design, we can use these principles to communicate relationships or the lack of between different elements. We use principles such as proximity to create a relationship between elements such as an image, text, and a button. We add symmetric objects to the page to give a feeling of calmness and balance to a user interface. Continuity helps display a group of elements such as lists to communicate a relationship between each item as part of a bigger group even though each is considered its own entity. Together they flow in a similar direction as if they were one. Combined together these principles help us create interfaces that are easier to learn, pleasant to look at, and more delightful to use.