I currently have a large number of circumstances where I need to verify that a page (along with all of its elements) are displaying correctly. The isDisplayed() method of WebElement appears to be a logical way to do this, however I would like to understand precisely what this method is doing to determine whether or not an element "is displayed". The javadoc does not shed any light on the inner workings of the method and other information on the web appears to be sparse at best.

If anyone could provide a detailed description of how this method works, I would be very grateful.