A New Method for the Characterization of the Perspicuity of User Interfaces
Rita Mátrai, Zsolt Tibor Kosztyán · 2012
This paper presents a new method for the characterization of the perspicuity of user interfaces based on users' navigation structures and reaction times. The user interface of a web page or software is good if users easily find information that they need. Therefore, it seems to be logical to give search tasks to the users and characterize the perspicuity of a user interface on the basis of the search time and navigation structure of the users. Experiments started with tasks where users did not have to read; they searched among 2D and 3D geometrical objects and among pictures. The experiment investigated which areas of the screen were preferred. These experiments were followed by tasks where the participant had to read as well. Here information was organized in columns because on web pages and news portals, the user is often confronted with layouts in columns and must search textual information ordered in columns. These tasks investigated how multi-column layout guides visual attention and how settings can help or disturb users to find information they need, settings such as the number of columns, target positions, word length, meaningful/meaningless context, colour of the fore- and background, size of the area which had to be scanned.