Studies of Gestalt Principles

The "blur" test

One way to think about the function of Gestalt Principles is that they provide "low frequency" information that helps people to organize a web page even before the reader has processed the "high frequency" information of the actual text and details of the graphics on the web page. One way to identify this "low frequency" information is to "blur" the graphic of a web page. Below are several web pages that were "captured" and then "blurred" using Photoshop. You can obtain this same result by performing the "squint test" - if you look at a web page and squint your eyes, you will see only the "low frequency" information of the page. (If the page is not meaningful with the "squint test", then it is probably not well designed.)

Last updated: April 23, 2015