Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design

The redesign of the Wall Street Journal creates a clear entry point to each edition by highlighting the region of the page containing news summaries. The summaries also act as a point of prospect, allowing readers to quickly scan for stories of interest with no competing visual barriers. Page references on select summaries act as progressive lures,

The rule of thirds is a technique derived from the use of early grid systems in composition. It is applied by dividing a medium into thirds both vertically and horizontally, creating an invisible grid of nine rectangles and four intersections. The primary element within a design is then positioned on an intersection of the grid. The asymmetry of th

Mental models are representations of systems and environments derived from experience. People understand and interact with systems and environments by comparing the outcomes of their mental models with the real-world systems and environments. When the outcomes correspond, a mental model is accurate and complete. When the outcomes do not correspond,

The principle of proximity is one of several principles referred to as Gestalt principles of perception. It asserts that elements close together are perceived as a single group or chunk, and are interpreted as being more related than elements that are farther apart.

Landscape architects are increasingly embracing desire lines from the outset, allowing desire lines to emerge in parks and campuses over a period of many months, and then paving the lines to make permanent walkways. The approach is certainly preferable to the more common alternative: Attempt to predict how people will navigate a landscape, render t

For example, many universities have learned the hard way that parents and students equate the quality of education with the price of tuition. To increase enrollment and address complaints about the rising costs of education, many boards of trustees reduce tuition. This, however, invariably results in a decrease, not an increase, in student enrollme

All products progress through stages of existence that roughly correspond to birth, life, and death. For example, a new type of electronic device is envisioned and developed; its popularity grows; after a while its sales plateau; and then finally, the sales decline. Understanding the implications of each of the stages allows designers to prepare fo

Homogenous redundancy is the use of multiple elements of a single type (e.g., use of multiple independent strands to compose a rope).

Pictures are remembered better than words.1