Arrange UI elements to create meaningful visual groups using Gestalt principles: Proximity, Similarity, Closure, and Continuity.
Items close together are perceived as related
Similar items are perceived as a group
Mind completes incomplete shapes
Eye follows smooth paths
Formulated by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, early 20th century
Gestalt principles describe how the human brain automatically groups visual elements into patterns, using cues like proximity, similarity, closure and continuity, rather than perceiving each element in isolation.
The theory comes from early 20th-century Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, who studied how people perceive wholes rather than collections of parts.
Interface designers rely on these principles constantly: grouping a label tightly with its input field (proximity), styling related buttons the same color (similarity), or aligning cards into a clean grid (continuity).