3. People Identify Objects by Recognizing Patterns

Recognizing Patters

• Your eyes and brain wants to create patterns, even if there is not one.
• Recognizing patterns helps to make sense of the sensory input coming in every second.
• Grouping like objects creates a pattern.
• Even whitespace or the lack of whitespace is recognized as a pattern.

The Geon Theory of Object Recognition

• You recognize the basic shapes of what you are looking at.
• These basic shapes are called Geometric Icons or simply Geons.
• Geons help to identify objects.
• It is believed that there are only 24 basic shapes we recognize.
• These basic shapes are the building block of every object we see.

The Use of Patterns

• Since we already look for patterns, use them in your designs.
• Design an easy and quickly recognizable object by using basic shapes.
• Design in 2D instead of 3D. We already communicate what we see to the brain in 2D.
• 3D representations will slow down recognition and understanding.