It’s ironic. You spend hours, days, weeks, or even months working on the visual design of an infographic or a website. Yet research by Katharina Reinecke, Lane Harrison, and the team at the University of Michigan shows that people make lasting judgments about the design’s…

If you’ve ever worked with a coach to improve your ability to communicate persuasively, you probably learned how important it is to look directly at people when you’re talking to them. The rule of thumb is that looking at someone directly when you’re speaking makes…

Imagine you’re looking at a screen showing a picture of a person looking at a product, like the picture shown in Figure 7.1. FIGURE 7.1 An image of a person looking at a product. Will your gaze go to the same place as the gaze…

You’re at home in front of your laptop browsing the Internet. If I ask you what you’re seeing in your central vision at any particular time, you could probably describe it fairly well. You might say, “I’m looking at text on a page. I’m reading…

Think about all the things you see during a typical day. Your eyes are constantly taking in visual stimuli. But you don’t react to everything you see. A lot of it goes by without your brain or body reacting. Yet certain things do produce an…

It’s 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday and you’re at home in front of your laptop, browsing the Internet. You open your favorite news site and scan the headlines. You click on a story and read for a bit, then go back to the main page…

In 1948, H. L. de Vries was studying the eyes of men who were color blind. He made an amazing discovery that he mentioned only in passing, on the last page of the paper he wrote about his research. His discovery went virtually unnoticed for…

Whether you’re choosing stock images for a web page or deciding whether to show the subject of a photo straight on or in profile, consider people’s preference for symmetry. Take any object—a photo of a face or a drawing of a circle or a seashell—and…

Have you ever wondered why clients always prefer logos with curves rather than logos with interesting angles? Have you noticed that your favorite smartphones, tablets, and laptops tend to have rounded corners? What’s the big deal with those curves and rounded corners? People prefer objects…

Some people are familiar with our book 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, but many don’t realize that there is a “sequel”: 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People. And even few realize that there is now a 2nd…