Users are dumb

and incredibly busy
what we don’t see

Inattentional blindness

change blindness

spot the error message

before after or next to

what we do see
http://flickr.com/photos/naoh

Pre-attentive processing

Colour is pre-attentive

Shape is pre-attentive

Where’s the red circle now?

Preattentive Processing

www.lisarienermann.com
the whole is more than the sum of its parts

Which way to the toilets?
Thisisbroken.com

gestalt principles

.
From moonbird's Flickr stream

page elements create lines & shapes

http://flickr.com/photos/morgantepsic
so common it becomes invisible

alerts

what the user sees

to sum up…