Visual Thinking: for Design (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies)

Information seekers have highly individual

is more accurate to say that we are conscious of the field of information to which we have rapid access rather than that we are immediately conscious of the world.

The quickest and most practical method for drilling down is the mouse-over hover query.

Cognitive affordances are readily perceived possibilities for action. For example, a computer interface may have a number of on-screen buttons that are available for metaphorically pressing with the mouse cursor.

make the connection points between parts of objects as clear as possible.

Computer-based cognitive tools are developing with great speed in human society, far faster than the human brain can evolve.

Negative affordances are as important as positive ones since they rule out whole classes of activity.

Gibson started a revolution in the study of perception by claiming that we perceive physical affordances for actions, and not images on the retina, which had been the basis of prior theories.

The special skill of designers is not so much skill with drawing or graphic design software, although these are undoubtedly useful, but the talent to analyze a design in terms of its ability to support the visual queries of others.

The non-pictorial depth cues are stereopsis (arising from our having two eyes), structure from motion (which we get as we move through the world), as well as lesser effects like focusing of the lens in the eye, and the convergence of the two eyes that occurs when we fixate near objects.