Establishing visual hierarchy

We know we can influence where people direct their attention, and how they…perceive a Web site or application.…We're more sensitive to certain colors, and motion, and we're susceptible to…perceptual illusions, and ambiguity.…But we can take what we know about sensation and perception, and use that to…establish a visual hierarchy on the page or screen.…Although this really isn't a course about visual design, many of these…techniques also apply to interaction design.…Value and contrast can attract attention, and establish importance.…

Content that is darker, and has higher contrast with what surrounds it,…will attract attention.…Large, bold, dark font faces for headers are effective, because they combine size…and value to draw our attention.…Color can also draw attention; orange and yellow buttons attract attention,…because we're very sensitive to those colors.…Text links with a different color from the text around them stand out and…attract attention, because they're different.…Whitespace, or negative space, can help highlight information.…