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Crooked Pixels

Musings about design, technology and everything in between.

Written by Charles Lim aka Ched

The Manipulation LoopTechnology

The Manipulation Loop

You don't learn by being told. You learn by watching what happens when you touch it.

The feedback cycle of making → observing → adjusting that transforms a tool from opaque to transparent. Logo taught programming not through abstraction but through immediate, visible consequence. The most effective learning environments are ones where the gap between action and result is as small as possible.

TL;DR

The learning feedback cycle of making, observing the result, and adjusting: understanding comes from interaction, not instruction.

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More Glossary items

Design

Common Fate

Common fate is a Gestalt principle of perception stating that visual elements moving in the same direction and at the same speed are perceived as a single group, regardless of differences in their colour, shape, or position. It is regarded as one of the strongest grouping cues in visual perception.

Design

Figure/Ground

Figure/ground is a Gestalt principle of perception describing how the visual system separates a scene into a focal object, the figure, and its surrounding background, the ground. The relationship can be stable or ambiguous, as in reversible images like Rubin's vase, where figure and ground compete for the viewer's attention.

Design

Proximity

Proximity is a Gestalt principle of visual perception stating that elements placed close together are perceived as a related group, while elements spaced further apart are seen as separate. In interface and graphic design, spacing alone can communicate grouping and hierarchy without borders, lines, or explicit labels.

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Crooked Pixels

Charles Lim is Head of Brand & Communications at PartnerStack — a designer who codes, a strategist who ships, a brand leader who drives pipeline. Crooked Pixels is his field notes on building with AI.

Learn more about Charles at charleslim.net