ProcessGallery: Illustrating Design Principles through Contrasting Pairs of Early and Late Iterations of Visual Designs.

DOI

Traditional design galleries enable users to search for examples based on surface attributes (e.g., color or style) while largely disregarding underlying principles (e.g., hierarchy or readability). A series of studies explored how example galleries could be constructed to help novices learn key design principles. Study 1 revealed that novices gain perspective by observing and searching the evolution of other's design process. Study 2 found that novices are better at identifying design issues when viewing example pairs that improve by one principle rather than multiple. Building on these insights, we created ProcessGallery, a tool that enables users to browse contrasting pairs of early-and-late iterations of designs that highlight key improvements organized by design principles. In Study 3, participants iterated on a seed design after viewing examples in ProcessGallery versus a traditional gallery. Using ProcessGallery, participants found more appropriate examples, were better at assessing designs, and significantly preferred the tool for learning.