Chapter 17: INTEGRATING VISUAL DESIGN

In this chapter I learned the Elements of Visual Interface Design. It is important because visual interface design uses the arrangement of visual elements to communicate behavior and information and when you are creating the interface visually you should focus on the context like where the user is viewing the interface, is there sunlight? Dark room. There is shape, maybe their outlines, the properties of the shapes, like size and color.  The color as I mentioned is important too like the values and hues. The orientation in which way the interface is viewed as well as the texture, position and most importantly typography. The type should be high in contrast text, the right point size and be worded correctly.

I also learned about information hierarchy, where differences In visual attributes arranged helps to create the interface, and these visual interfaces should do some of the following, cover a tone, respond to commands, draw attention to important events and much more. Grids are very tool to the designer because it provides a uniform and consistent structure to layout. There is atomic grid unit that represents the smallest spacing between elements and modular, therefore flexible. There shouldn’t be a lot of visual work like the visual noise. Visual noise can be weak visual hierarchy, crowding elements, intense colors etc.

Lastly, there are visual information design principles to follow, Tufte said there are two problems like displaying multidirectional information or the resolution of the display surface not being high enough to display dense information. The displayed information should do some of the following like show causality, integrate text and graphics and data In one display, enforce visual comparisons and many more.