Our brains are pattern-recognition machines. And we know that Associations between concepts is thinking. Associations are triggered by recognizing patterns.
This is our brain's way of connecting what's in front of us to something we already know, in order to make sense of it. This can happen almost unconsciously, but sometimes we have to make conscious effort, especially for more complex things. This is also why Learning best happens by making connections.
But generally recognizing patterns helps us make associations and thus understand things. This happens fastest through vision: Vision is the dominant sense.
The implication for design is that Usage of common and familiar interaction or visual patterns is very important to make a UI understandable (and by extension usable).
Side note: Be aware that understanding isn't necessarily about seeing the universal truth: it's just often the subjective feeling of "this feels right" (i.e. this matches a pattern that I know). We have to be aware of this: it's important for critical thinking.
Side note #2: People naturally look for patterns to enable understanding. We can't help but see patterns even when it can be misleading.
Tags: understanding design patterns
ID: 2021-0223-0802
References:
This is because Understanding is about recognizing patterns . When we consider Mental models in design , this is a key component of making…
Vision dominates between people's senses. We register the most information through vision (orders of magnitude more than other senses…
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