Harrell

Phantasmal Media: Chapter 4

Harrell discusses the impacts of visual representatons of graphical components in computers. He speaks on how users’ different epistemic domains influence their perceptions of these designs, and how different represenration might satisfy them differently. This reminds me of the change in Twitter’s like/favoriting feature. Originally, the action was represented by a star icon, and it was later change to a heart icon. This was in partly due to the merging of the population’s epistemic domains. As more social media applications came to existence, they all collectively tarted using heart icons. This meant users were familiarized with this representation and shunned away from Twitter’s orginal star design, which prompted the change.

Basic Semiotics Concepts

On a separate piece, Harrell dwelves into the concept of semiotics. He discusses the division between the sign, a distinguishable icon, and the signifier, the concept or idea it represents. He also elaborates how some signs use other signs (at a more removed level) to convey their ideas. As Harrel showed with his example of the “Youth Against Racism in Europe” sign, I think this is the case for a lot of anti movements. These are most often based around existing issues which already have recognizable iconography, therefore by including those elements into their own signs, their movement becomes recognizable, and their iconography, easily interpretable.

Ron Allman

Gesalt Psycology

Allman dicusses the main laws behind Gesalt psycology. As a perceived the examples provided, I concurred with of these ideas discussed. However, the example for the Law of Similarity was not especially effective. Before the text noted it was a triangle inside the square, I simply perceived a set of mismatched elements. Nevertheless, I do not think this disproved the law, but rather demonstrated that it is exhibited at different degrees. Moreover, I would’ve appreciated if the visual example for the Law of Good Continuation did not have the arrows drawn out. I feel these arrows take away from determining if us, as viewers, truly follow the direction of the elements.

In all, I find it very intersting how all people’s perceptions have some pre-determined set of rules. This remind’s me of McCloud’s comment on how we see faces in everything. The same way we are wired to follow patterns, or group elements, we are also taught to recognize prominent symbols subconciously.