Perception Psychology


In addition to Presenter Focus and Less Is More, the two essential concepts for powerful graphics design, there is a third vital element in the equation: the audience and how they take in what they see. I call this Perception Psychology .

Let's begin by analyzing how the human eye moves.

You're familiar with the illuminated initial letter that appears in fine manuscripts or in handsomely printed books. It always appears in the upper left corner of the page, where a new book or a new chapter begins. Magazines and newspapers also often use an enlarged initial letter to start articles. That's because in western countries like the U.S., France, Spain, and Germany, languages are always printed from left to right, and top to bottom. As a result, a western reader's eyes are conditioned to move to the upper left corner to start a new passage.

This is not innate. It's culturally determined and learned. In the Middle East, books begin at the back and are read from right to left. Therefore, the eyes of those readers are conditioned to begin at the upper right corner of a page.

I call this tendency for our eyes to jump to the upper left corner of a page the conditioned carriage return , since the movement recalls the repeated movement of the carriage on an old-fashioned typewriter.

When people read print in a book, magazine, or newspaper, their eyes make the conditioned carriage return with every new page. In a presentation, this movement occurs with every new slide.

There is one major difference, however. When your eyes shuttle across a page in a book or magazine, they move only five to eight inches at a time. In a presentation, when they have to leap across a large screen in a conference room or auditorium, they move anywhere from two feet to 20 feet, depending on the size of the screen.

Therefore, every time a new graphic flashes on the screen, here's what happens: First, because of a lifetime of conditioning, the eyes of the audience jump to the upper left corner. Then their eyes suddenly become aware that there is more information on the screen, and so now their eyes must make another move to take in the rest of the information. This next move is more powerful than the first. Their eyes sweep to the right in a completely involuntary action. I call this the reflexive cross sweep , illustrated in Figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2. The reflexive cross sweep.

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Unlike the learned move of the conditioned carriage return, the left-to-right movement of the reflexive cross sweep is apparently innate. Sometimes the move is down and to the right, and sometimes it is up and to the right. Most painters organize their pictures based on eye movement down and to the right. That is why, more often than not, artists sign their canvases in the lower right corner.

Businesspeople also intuitively follow the reflexive move to the right; but they are also accustomed to taking the high road, following the desired growth pattern of revenue and profits symbolized by the hockey stick, (Figure 6.3).

Figure 6.3. The hockey stick movement, up and to the right.

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Whether up and to the right (as in business) or down and to the right (as in art), this involuntary left-to-right movement is deeply embedded in our nature.

No one has ever fully explained why these reflexive movements occur. In his 1954 book Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Rudolf Arnheim, a Gestalt psychologist and a scholar of art and cinema, offered several theories , ranging from the plausible to the fanciful. The plausible: Because the majority of humans are right-handed, there is a natural tendency toward greater awareness of objects on the right side of the visual field. The fanciful: Early humans were so impressed by the movement of the sun from left to right that they favored this form of movement. (The latter theory only applies to humans living north of the equator, and since most modern anthropologists now believe our earliest ancestors originated in Africa, south of the equator, that theory is dubious).

All these theories notwithstanding, the innate predisposition of the eye to move from left to right is undeniable. It is palpable. You can feel it yourself as you scan this very page or any of the illustrations in this book.

In my days in television, I incorporated this preference in how I directed subjects and cameras . Next time you watch a well-directed movie or television drama, notice how the characters move across the screen. Most often, the sympathetic characters , the heroes and heroines with whom the audience identifies, move from the left side of the screen toward the right, flowing with the natural movement of the eye. By contrast, the unsympathetic characters, the villains whom the audience dislikes, move from right to left, fighting against the eye's natural flow.

Even when the characters are stationary, the movement of the camera can convey the same feelings: A pan right is smooth; a pan left drags . Very subtly, these differences fuel the audience's emotional reaction to the drama, helping them to think and feel the way the actors, director, and writer intended.

Director Sam Mendes used these techniques to powerful effect in the Tom Hanks/Paul Newman film, The Road to Perdition . In the opening scene, we see a city street in the Depression era crowded with pedestrians, most of them moving from left to right. Then a young boy on a bicycle enters, pedaling from right to left, against the grain. The boy is Tom Hanks' son, whose difficulties form the central part of the story. From the outset, these powerful cinematic dynamics set the foreboding tone for the entire film.

In the theatre, directors incorporate the same approach with actors on the stage: protagonists to move toward the right and antagonists to move toward the left.

By understanding Perception Psychology and applying it properly, you can control the effect of your graphics on your audience.

It all goes back to how we first learned to absorb information as children: reading text. By understanding Perception Psychology and applying it properly, you can control the effect of your graphics on your audience. And in presentations, you want that effect to be positive.

In a presentation, when a new image flashes on the screen, within an instant, your audience's eyes will make two moves: one to the left to start the slide (the conditioned carriage return); and one to the right to take in all the information (the reflexive cross sweep). The move to the right will either go up or down.

However, if in the design of your graphics, you've put excess data on the screen, your audience cannot finish in two moves. They're forced to make another trip, and perhaps more than one. This third trip, along with any subsequent trips they must make, will be hard work, backwards and against the grain. I call this third trip, back and to the left, the forced carriage return . You can see all three moves in Figure 6.4.

Figure 6.4. Three moves caused by excessive graphic information.

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This again leads us to one of the most important practical applications of the Less Is More dictum: Don't make me think! That refrain asks you not to make your audience work to understand your ideas. The same refrain applies to the work your audience must do to absorb your graphics. Therefore, design all your slides to Minimize the Eye Sweeps of your audience. For every graphic, keep the number of times their eyes must go back and forth across the screen to an absolute minimum. Make it easy for your audience, and they will be receptive to you.

Design all your slides to Minimize the Eye Sweeps of your audience.

Thus, the overarching principles of powerful and effective graphics are:

  • Presenter Focus

  • Less Is More

  • Minimize Eye Sweeps

Everything that follows will explain how to implement these principles.



Presenting to Win. The Art of Telling Your Story
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Updated and Expanded Edition
ISBN: 0137144172
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 94

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