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

Colin Ware's Visual Thinking for Design is a good book, especially for visual designers who are curious to know the explanations of human perceptions in visual design. It is fascinating how he uses science and his experiences in visual design to teach and guide the designers in improving their design. Although I learned a lot from Colin Ware's book, there are number of improvements that I think would benefit the readers of the book:*Adding a section addressing the issues concerned with intellectual property, copyright, fair use and open source or Creative Commons designs. I think that this is an important section, one that needs to be mentioned in any book of visual design. Designers can be pre-occupied with scoping, designing, testing, and other things, and it is easy to forget about protecting their work and themselves from legal actions.*Colin Ware may have discussed other designers in his other books, but it would have been a good addition to see a designer's name he identifies with. There has got to be at least one designer that influence most of his design work. If there are multiple influences or if everything is original - that would have been good to see from the book too.*Adding a section discussing a web style most beneficial to the users and that designers should adopt. Although he discussed some elements to help improve design in general, I did not see enough application with the web.*It would be good to emphasize that there could be a setback on relying on colors alone. Samples showing this scenario could intensify the value of color coding and using it appropriately with texts and/or other elements.*Adding some discussion on how people with certain handicaps vary in their visual thinking. Since the book is dealing mostly with scientific explanations, it is fitting to explain the variations in visual thinking among older, younger, handicapped designers - if there is any.*It would have been good to read more about some of his personal preferences on design along with his design work to tie his scientific explanations of the principles and elements.

interaction designers, visual designers, researchers, people working in visualization, and the curious will find value in this book. careful readers will gain a deep understanding of how, why, and what we see. this understanding will inform the use of color, edges, contours, textures, layout, text, images, order and motion. designers will gain a new vista for critique and empathy: "which visual queries does this design imply? how well does it support those queries? how costly are they?" (a "visual query"--there's a more elegant definition in the book--is a question that is asked and answered with the eyes. for example, "which of these two items is larger?")readers may come to appreciate just how mental, rather than mechanical, the act of vision is. they may also come to appreciate the preponderance of information that resides in the world, rather than the brain; and, on the other hand, the preponderance of information that the brain adds, via processing, to the incoming signal. vision and cognition interpenetrate to form a beautiful "strange loop" wherein what we seek influences what we see, and vice versa.if i were asked to compose a canon of interaction design, this book would be in it, alongside  About Face 3 , Sketching User Experiences , and  Envisioning Information .one criticism: in my personal opinion, some of the designs and diagrams in the book are less than beautiful. this engenders a mild disconnect between the purpose and execution of the book.

As a former biologist, venturing into software about 30 years ago, I found reading this book an enlighting experience. This is a must-read for anyone who never clearly knew why some visual designs are better than others but suspected there had to be a physiological reason. It is becoming a reference for my team of developers in the domain of numerical controls for industrial machine tools.

A bit hard to read due to its scientific context, but one amazing book. Gives golden indepth insights on how our vision and brain works. As a designer, this book has influenced my work alot, giving the scientific cues on how to create in a ways that work sub- and consciously.

Lots of clear and easy to follow examples that help you understand cognitive theories. Good delivery. Highly recommendable for those with no idea of how to improve a visualization.

Ware's work on visualization is excellent and compact - a must read in the increasingly important era of "Big Data".

I read a bit of it because it was for one of my classes. I barely used it for the class, but it has some interesting things to read in it.

This book taught me a lot about how humans see and visual thinking, but it isn't an easy read. I would still recommend it, however.

As a graphic design student about to write a dissertation on design psychology, this book is perfect for me.It is quite text heavy compared to many books on design, but this is because it goes in to great detail. It is illustrated where necessary.

Good intermediate book. If interested in more check another one (more advanced) by the same author.

The author had to use language that’s so hard to understand. Gets sooooo technical, did not enjoy it at all. I think it can be written to let readers better understand it.

Nulla di nuovo. Cercavo un libro sulle nuove teorie di visual thinking e mi sono ritrovata un libro sulle teorie della percezione visiva basilari. Roba da primo anno universitario.Lo definirei è un buon manuale per chi è totalmente a digiuno della materia e un bigino per chi fa comunicazione visiva di professione.

D'abord, c'est un ouvrage de superbe facture : enfin un auteur qui met en pratique son propos sur la forme.C'est très complet : du neurone aux plans du métro tout y est.Vraiment un ouvrage de référence pour la communication