MODULE: Gestalt theory

Step 13 of 16: Prägnanz

Our eighth Law, Prägnanz, is a particularly insightful one. In German the word refers to "pithiness", or being concise. The conciseness is requisite in this Law to explain the human preference for wanting to see fewer whole "things" when possible. People will tend to look for the simplest explanation to what they see rather than investigate all the intricate details and convolutions first. You will no doubt have viewed a poster and been struck by a "whole" impression of the composition of elements on the page before deconstructing it, if time and interest allowed. That first inclination to see a simple "whole"/big picture is a good demonstration of simplifying the noise of any arrangement into its most essential elements first. A "meta" message. Take the image below for example, most people see a square, a triangle and circle, all overlapping;

The image is not three primary geometric shapes at all. It is a complex assortments of polygons, circular segments and compound shapes. Five of them in fact, which are easily discernible and connected. But we don't want to, or need to, understand it that way, otherwise our senses would be inundated by an overwhelming array of noise that each required our attention to interpret. Instead the unconcscious processing that occurs simplifies the message and even creates a pleasant simplicity that is not frustrating or time-consuming to decipher. Understanding this perceptual and behavioural predisposition to appreciate "less is more" is a very sophisticated tool for the attentive Designer to embrace a reductive Design aesthetic.