The chapter begins with the sentence: "Sometimes visual design seems simple." From my standpoint - the standpoint of someone who has never considered all that goes into designing a website - this is true, but after reading what goes into the thought process to conceive of how best to formulate a site, there's lot's more to it than a clever banner, an artsy or plain background, and ease of use.
This chapter focused on how to visually approach a document by using perception to attract, culture to explain, and rhetoric to persuade. The example the book gave of the museum leaflet geared toward kids effectively demonstrated all three of those theories. The designer of the leaflet used vivid colors to attract his audience, used magnifying glasses - a cultural touch associated with being a detective - and rhetoric to engage the kids in solving a mystery.
Though Gestalt laws of perception seem to be the standard that document designers subscribe to, the authors point out that "other explanations of perception have something to add to our understanding as well."
I have to say, all the neurophysiology talk made my neurons hurt...
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