Visual thinking: For design

Ware, C. (2010). Visual thinking: For design. Amsterdam, NL: Elsevier.

Summary

In this book we learn about perception, cognition, and attention and how it can be transformed into understandable guidance that can be applied to information design. The book demonstrates how designs can be considered as tools for cognition – external representations of what is going on in the viewer’s mind. There are many examples in the book that help drive the concepts home for the reader. One thing in particular that is powerfully related in the book are the principles of “active vision”, which views graphic designs as cognitive tools.

Experience

One thing this book helped me to do was to begin thinking more deeply about how I have displayed data in the past and how little attention I paid to other’s perceptions and attention. In that sense, what I learned from this book is to pause and take a more holistic view of what I am attempting to accomplish with representations of my data. The idea of “active vision” is of interest to me going forward, because I will be thinking about how to use that concept in the layout of future information designs.

KEYWORDS: Visual thinking, visual queries, visual working memory, visual field, primary visual cortex, mirror neurons, eye movements, perception, fovea, pattern-finding