Gestalt principles, or the laws of visual perception, help us understand how the brain groups individual elements, recognizes patterns, and simplifies complex images.
The concept came about in the early 1900s when German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler identified how the mind 'translates' everything the eye sees into a unified whole. The German word for 'unified whole' being—you guessed it—Gestalt.
Today, these psychologically-proven grouping laws are used in UX design to help build more human-friendly products, increase product engagement, lower learning curves, and build all-around positive experiences for users.
In this article, we'll take a closer look at:
- The psychology behind the Gestalt principles
- The different grouping principles + examples
- How UX/UI designers use these principles
- A Gestalt principles product case study with Foyer
What are the Gestalt grouping principles?
The Gestalt principles of perception are psychology laws that describe how the human brain processes and groups visual elements. It was Wertheimer’s 1912 ‘Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung