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Article Title: Why You Need A Website Gestalt
Author: Jerry Bader
Word Count: 1329
Article URL: http://www.isnare.
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'Wired' magazine published an intriguing article entitled 'Very
Short Stories' where they asked a number of authors to create a
story in only six words. At first this seems to be an
impossible task, but as you'll see it's an excellent example of
how the principles of Gestalt can help marketers develop
powerful marketing messages on their websites or in any other
marketing venue.
One of the best 'Very Short Stories' was by Canadian novelist,
Margaret Atwood, "Corpse parts missing. Doctor buys yacht."
This macabre six-word tale tells us a complete story. We need
no further details or explanation to understand exactly what
has happened. This is an example of what the Gestaltists call
'closure' the ability of the brain to fill in the blanks in
order to complete a picture or in this case to tell a story.
Since the early days of the Gestalt movement visual artists
have had an affinity for the psychological implications of the
theory. We are all familiar with Op Art's visual tricks and
with Rorschach images and how we interpret them, but as you can
see from Atwood's clever six-word story, this principle also
works on a conceptual level.
Although proponents of Gestalt have been mainly concerned with
the visual implications of the theory's principles, these same
principles can be applied to more sophisticated problem solving
issues. The ability to form almost instantaneous conclusions
from relatively little information as discussed in Malcolm
Gladwell's book 'Blink' could easily be attributed to the
analytical implications of Gestalt theory.
Delivering a marketing message on a website quickly and in a
manner that is easy to understand and remember is the primary
problem-solving task confronting the professional website
designer concerned with achieving his or her client's marketing
objectives.
There are many examples of how this principle of closure works.
Someone gives you something to read. The text on the page at
first appears to be gibberish as none of the words have any
vowels, but despite their absence, you find that you can still
read the message and understand what is being said.
These examples illustrate how the human brain puts pieces of
information together until it recognizes a pattern that has
some meaning. This phenomenon has often been boiled down to the
familiar phrase: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When websites disappoint, the cause most likely starts with a
failure to recognize that websites are communication vehicles
and that communication is as much a psychological design
problem as it is an artistic or programming exercise.
The Significance of Pattern Recognition
Direct marketers have successfully used the natural human need
for resolution, to fill-in the blanks, to sell all kinds of
products. A common approach is to offer a reduced price starter
kit for some collectible item like a spoon, dish, or coin that
includes the first item of a series and a display case with
room for several more products. When customers get the first
collectible and place it on the display provided, the empty
spaces cry-out to be filled. It's an old marketing gambit, but
one that works because human beings are hardwired to fill-in
the blanks and complete the display or pattern.
The Gestalt visual designer will use five pattern producing
contextual techniques in order to provide the viewer with clues
for completing the pattern that in-turn communicates the
message;
1. Closure: the mind is predisposed to complete a pattern by
filling in the blanks from the available information.
2. Continuance: the mind will follow a path seeking a
conclusion or resolution from clues that point in particular
direction.
3. Similarity: the mind fights abstraction by trying to put the
pieces of a puzzle together in some familiar form.
4. Proximity: the mind draws conclusions from the physical
relationship of clues that clarify associations that help make
the unknown known.
5. Alignment: the mind demands organization and will use
association to create meaningful groups of information.
The Significance of Story Telling
Successful marketers don't need to provide every detail of a
marketing message in order to deliver a meaningful
presentation, in fact too much information can actually get in
the way of delivering a sophisticated communication. Like
Margaret Atwood's six-word story, meaning can be both concise
and precise when the right combination of information is
presented.
A story is nothing more than a conceptual pattern with a
beginning, middle, and end. When your brain has to do a little
work to put the pieces of information together to form a
complete comprehensible message, that story becomes more
memorable and that is exactly what marketers and advertisers
strive to achieve.
If we want to maximize sales we have to look at the big
picture. What do we want from our website visitor or prospect
beyond a one-shot sale of a product or service? The answer lies
in how we learn, how we come to conclusions, and how we develop
our personal belief systems. Our belief systems range from our
political affiliation to the brand of toothpaste we buy.
Developing A Marketing Belief System
All marketers have learned Al Reis and Jack Trout's axiom that
a brand is owning a piece of your audience's mind, the problem
has always been how to actually acquire that valuable piece of
real estate?
The management of a business is an all consuming process that
leaves little time for contemplation of conceptual problem
solving, but if we step back for just one moment and think of
our customers as human beings, animals with the need to resolve
problems and form conclusions based on a unique mental process,
then maybe we can present our marketing case with more long
term impact.
Everything we believe in is based on a four-part mental process
that is best executed by means of a linear narrative - a
compelling well-formed story.
1. Retention: the message we deliver must be retained in order
for it to have any long-term affect.
2. Comprehension: the message must be understood in order for
it to achieve the desired goal.
3. Interpretation: a well-formed message will be processed by
the audience who will draw it's own conclusions based on
previous knowledge or pre-existing belief systems.
4. Cognitive extension: once a message has been retained,
understood, and interpreted, the mind will file it away and use
it as a way to filter future information that relates to it.
Implications of Gestalt To An Evolving Web Environment
The principles of Gestalt and the need for human beings to
resolve problems through pattern recognition have greater
implications than just visual design. As early as 1890 Austrian
philosopher, Christian von Ehrenfels wrote an article, "On
Gestalt Qualities' in which he pointed out that a piece of
music could be recognized even when it was played in different
keys where all the notes were different. The inference is
clear: the need to resolve ambiguity and to solve problems is
fundamental to how we think and applies to how we process
signals to our brain from all our senses not just visual ones.
As website design slowly evolves from the presentation of mere
text and static images to a richer more eloquent environment,
the sophisticated Web-marketer will need to incorporate the
psychology and principles of Gestalt to better deliver their
marketing story - a story best told by tapping into as many of
an audiences senses as the environment used will allow.
The power of this approach lies in it's ability to influence an
audience's belief system by establishing a set of mental
patterns that help your targeted audience resolve purchasing
dilemmas in your favor, and at the same time, act as a barrier
to competitors' less sophisticated marketing approaches.
About The Author: Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia,
a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and
Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebme
http://www.136words
Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.
Please use the HTML version of this article at:
http://www.isnare.
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