Most people know great design when they see it, but they have a difficult time defining exactly what it is. People have a strong desire for great design and science is 

now beginning to discover this as well. Studies of the brain have demonstrated that attractive design can often trigger hand movement in the motor cerebellum of the brain. Humans have a desire to literally reach out and touch that which they think is a great design. Science is at a loss to understand why this is true, but through experiments they are documenting that it does exist.

Researchers are looking into human attraction to various colors and have found links to our distant past and the environment we came from. Green, for example, is attractive and may be linked to plant life. Colorful landscapes may trigger reactions deep within our genetic code and can be used to trigger positive behaviors. This includes both painted landscapes and photographs of real-life landscapes. We evolved in the outdoors, and our genetic code seems to still remember this.

Our brain also seems to have an attraction to certain types of geometric shapes. One shape that appears to be compelling to our species is the rectangle. For reasons yet unknown, humans have a fondness for rectangles, and they can be found throughout modern society in great abundance. Our genetic material seems to also have a preference for certain density of materials. Items that are in between thick and sparse are those that are preferred. On a porosity scale, where a void is zero and a solid or completely filled area is 100 percent, humans tend to prefer about 33 percent. This holds true for our species regardless of which culture we are raised in. Scientists can only speculate as to why this is. People have a strong and measurable reaction to both patterns and density, and it is clear that it helps to reduce stress.

It is now all too obvious to design engineers that there are certain elements that can be incorporated into a product or device to make it more attractive. This includes colors, patterns and densities. Although great design is still mostly an art, the input from science is felt increasingly strong with each passing day. Engineers of the future may be able to design products that sell themselves from the moment the consumer lays their eyes on them.