Content uploaded by Siné Mcdougall
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Siné Mcdougall on Mar 27, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Exploring the effects of icon characteristics on user performance: The role of icon concreteness, complexity, and distinctiveness
Abstract and Figures
Because icons, signs, and symbols are now widely used to communicate information, it is essential for system designers to know what makes them easy to use and interpret. The authors report a series of studies that examine characteristics considered central to icon usability. After quantifying the properties of icon concreteness, complexity, and discriminability, the authors assessed each property's effects on user performance when user experience, task demands, and presentation context were systematically varied. Findings indicated that the effects of icon concreteness were primarily associated with the initial grasp of meaning, whereas complexity effects were found to persist longer and to be associated with search efficacy. The effects of icon distinctiveness were complex, but distinctiveness was enhanced by using both semantic and visual contrasts. The implications of these findings for interface design are discussed.
Figures - uploaded by Siné Mcdougall
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Siné Mcdougall
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Perceptions of aesthetic appeal are strongly influenced by several stimulus dimensions (e.g., colour: Bonnardel et al., 2011;; concreteness: Kawabata & Zeki, 2004;familiarity: Reber et al., 2004;Reppa & McDougall, 2015; symmetry and harmony : Palmer & Griscom, 2013;visual complexity: Eisenman, 1967;Reppa et al., 2021). Similar stimulus dimensions including visual complexity, concreteness, and familiarity are also known to influence performance in search and localisation tasks (e.g., Byrne, 1993;Isherwood et al., 2007;Jacobsen & Höfel, 2002;Kawabata & Zeki, 2004;McDougall et al., 2000;Vartanian & Goel, 2004). ...
... In order to conduct this research in a well-controlled manner, we needed a micro-world of well-defined and controlled stimuli that allow examination of the aesthetic appealperformance relationship, while carefully controlling for confounding variables. Icons are such a micro-world, not least because their characteristics are well documented both regarding their relationship with ratings of appeal and regarding task performance (e.g., McDougall et al., 1999;McDougall et al., 2000;. McDougall and Reppa (2008) found that three icon characteristics in particular, familiarity, concreteness, and visual complexity, accounted for a significant amount of the variance in aesthetic appeal ratings. ...
... In sum, visual complexity, concreteness, and familiarity contribute to (e.g., Jacobsen & Höfel, 2002;Kawabata & Zeki, 2004;Martindale et al., 1988;Vartanian & Goel, 2004;Zajonc, 1968Zajonc, , 2000, while also being strongly correlated with (e.g., , ratings of aesthetic appeal while at the same time having been shown to affect performance (e.g., Byrne, 1993;Green & Barnard, 1990;Isherwood et al., 2007;McDougall et al., 2000;McDougall et al., 2006;McDougall & Isherwood, 2009;Rogers & Oborne, 1987;Scott, 1993;Stotts, 1998). Therefore, although icons (especially those used in the current investigation) may not elicit the kind of strong emotive response one may associate with a strong aesthetic experience, they are known to elicit reliable appeal and emotional responses (e.g., Prada et al., 2016). ...
Aesthetic appeal of a visual image can influence performance in time-critical tasks, even if it is irrelevant to the task. This series of experiments examined whether aesthetic appeal can act as an object attribute that guides visual search. If appeal enhances the salience of the targets pre-attentively, then appealing icons would lead to more efficient searches than unappealing targets and, conversely, appeal of distractors would reduce search efficiency. Three experiments (N = 112) examined how aesthetic appeal influences performance in a classic visual search task. In each experiment, participants completed 320 visual search trials, with icons varying in rated aesthetic appeal and either visual complexity (Experiments 1 and 2) of concreteness (Experiment 3) among two, four, eight, or 11 distractor icons. While target appeal did not influence search efficiency it sped up search times in all three experiments: appealing targets led to faster response time (RT) than unappealing targets across all experiments, and compared to neutral distractors, appealing distractors slowed search RT down. These findings are the first to show that an object's aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.
... For example, comparisons between the effects of concrete versus abstract icons on performance were often confounded by the fact that the concrete icons were more pictorial and so tended to contain more visual detail, thus confounding visual complexity and concreteness (Arend et al., 1987;Green & Barnard, 1990;Rogers, 1986;Stammers et al., 1989). Subsequent research, using subjective ratings to control concreteness and complexity, was able to show that visual complexity and concreteness have quite different effects on user performance and thus need to be considered separately (Isherwood et al., 2007;McDougall et al., 2000McDougall et al., , 2001Reppa et al., 2008;Reppa & McDougall, 2015). Subjective ratings have therefore become an important tool in measurement and experimental control of icon properties. ...
... In a recent review, Souza et al. (2020) argued that a combination of perceptual, affective, and semantic dimensions should be considered, highlighting the increasing weight of evidence arguing that processing of pictorial stimuli involved all three factors (see also Kensinger, 2007;Konkle et al., 2010;Li et al., 2020). Icon-specific research has also demonstrated the importance of these factors in determining user performance (Forsythe et al., 2017, Forsythe et al., 2008Isherwood et al., 2007;McDougall et al., 2000;Reppa, McDougall, Sonderegger, & Schmidt, 2021;Reppa & McDougall, 2015). This is also reflected in practice. ...
... Visual complexity (Experiment 2) Visual complexity is one of the most frequently examined characteristics of icons and pictures (Souza et al., 2020) and is typically implicated in visual search. Icon complexity has a negative influence on icon search performance (Byrne, 1993;Gerlach & Marques, 2014;Isherwood et al., 2007;McDougall et al., 2000;McDougall et al., 2006;Reppa et al., 2008;Reppa & McDougall, 2015;Scott, 1993). Icon complexity may have particularly detrimental effects on search when task demands are high (Gerlach & Marques, 2014) or when carrying out visual search at times of day when performance is often poorer (e.g. during the 'postlunch dip ';McDougall et al., 2006). ...
Subjective ratings have been central to the evaluation of icon characteristics. The current study examined biases in ratings in relation to the context in which icons are presented. Context was manipulated between-participants, with some groups rating icon sets with limited variability, and others rating icon sets with wide variability. It was predicted that the context created by the icon set would influence participants’ ratings; when the range of icons was limited this would create bias given participants’ expectation that a full range of icon values was being presented. Six key icon characteristics were rated which were visual (visual complexity, appeal), affective (valence, feelings) and semantic (concreteness, semantic distance).
Some icon characteristics were susceptible to rating bias while others were not. Where subjective judgments were being made of visual icon characteristics (appeal/complexity) and highly concrete icons which were very pictorial, there was clear evidence of substantial bias in ratings. The same susceptibility to bias was not evident when ratings relied solely on learned semantic associations or were associated with the emotional attributions made to icons.
The dynamic nature of the ratings bias was demonstrated when the rating context was changed without participants’ knowledge. When participants rated further blocks of icons providing a different range of the to-be-rated characteristic, this resulted in rapid and dramatic changes in rating behavior.
These findings demonstrate the need for representative sampling of icon characteristics to avoid ratings bias. Practically, this is important when determining the usability of newly-designed icons sets in order to avoid over-valuing or under-valuing of key characteristics.
... Subjective rating is commonly used in user studies to gauge design qualities from user experiences [LRB03, AMTB05, Sur05, FFM * 13]. Mc-Dougall et al. [MDBC00] adopted subjective ratings to characterize cognitive features of icon designs and used the ratings in further analyses to investigate the correlations between the qualities. However, in most cases, the subjective rating is performed without a clear definition of each rating level. ...
Glyph-based visualization is one of the main techniques for visualizing complex multivariate data. With small glyphs, data variables are typically encoded with relatively low visual and perceptual precision. Glyph designers have to contemplate the trade-offs in allocating visual channels when there is a large number of data variables. While there are many successful glyph designs in the literature, there is not yet a systematic method for assisting visualization designers to evaluate different design options that feature different types of trade-offs. In this paper, we present an evaluation scheme based on the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methodology. The scheme provides designers with a structured way to consider their glyph designs from a range of perspectives, while rendering a semi-quantitative template for evaluating different design options. In addition, this work provides guideposts for future empirical research to obtain more quantitative measurements that can be used in MCDA-aided glyph design processes.
... When mappings between visual features and data attributes are intuitive enough that they don't need to be held in working memory, more memory is available for other tasks. In addition to their memory efficiency, under certain conditions, natural mappings have also been shown to be associated with faster and more accurate performance on visual search tasks (McDougall et al., 2000). ...
Search interfaces for room impulse response libraries are critical to the operation of convolution reverb, a popular digital audio effect. Traditional designs for such interfaces, however, scale poorly to the large library sizes encountered in contemporary practice. This dissertation explores an emerging approach to search interface design with greater scaling potential, namely, an approach that organizes impulse responses (IRs) by their perceptual properties. Effective design of such perceptual search interfaces requires a detailed understanding of how IRs are perceived and how their properties can be efficiently visualized. This dissertation seeks to answer open questions in these areas.
Following a review of research on reverberation perception, an exploratory study was conducted focused on mixing engineering contexts. In the first part of the study, a set of putative reverberation attributes was identified by analyzing algorithmic reverb presets. Statistical models of these attributes were developed, and these models were used to probe the perceptual dimensions of a library of IRs measured in physical spaces. The study singled out two attributes for further investigation: reverberation brightness and sound source distance.
Next, a psychophysical experiment was conducted to identify the objective signal correlates of these attributes. Reverberation brightness was found to be better predicted by a novel signal feature, based on the spectral slope of the early portion of the IR, than by a set of candidate features drawn from the literature.
Finally, compact visual representations of the perceptual qualities of IRs were explored. A novel, task-specific visualization technique was developed. Compared with a generic visualization technique, the novel technique was associated with better performance on an IR library search task.
The novel visualization technique and brightness predictor have been incorporated into a prototype search interface for a vast library of high-resolution multichannel IRs. Future work will test the effectiveness of this perceptual interface in ecologically valid contexts.
... Older patients use these signs to help them with wayfinding when seeking medical treatments [2,3]. In order to enhance the understanding of healthcare signage among older patients, many researchers have constructed in-depth studies on the effective expression of visual features in healthcare signs [4][5][6] and factors that affect the understanding of graphics among older people [6][7][8]. Due to differences in understanding and the cognition of symbols between designers and elderly users [2], the existing healthcare and hospital signage is still not friendly to the elderly. ...
Older people in China have a poor understanding of hospital signage. To address this problem, in this study, we combined the theories of situated cognition and cognitive commonness in order to introduce the three main factors that affect the generation of situational cognitive commonness: composition of the situation, familiarity, and concreteness. We used these theories to construct a methodological framework for the design of geriatric hospital wayfinding signs that were based on situational cognitive commonness. The design of nine healthcare signs for Chinese national standards were used as examples in the study. First, users who were familiar with medical scenarios were asked to draw concrete cognitive conception graphics for the purposes of individual wayfinding targets from both physical and social situations. Next, we coded and grouped the generated graphics based on their situational features in order to extract groups of representative common graphics. Finally, we reorganized the common graphics and developed concrete designs, which were tested by the judgment test. The wayfinding signs designed according to the methodological framework of this study effectively improved the understanding of hospital signage among older Chinese people. This study took geriatric hospital wayfinding signs as the examples to provide a feasible theoretical basis and research reference for symbol design.
... For example, simple, concrete and familiar stimuli all tend to improve user performance in comparison to complex, abstract and unfamiliar icons and also make icons more aesthetically appealing [e.g. [38,37,39,40]]. A major problem for existing icon corpora [e.g. [18,19]] is that they cannot control a priori for familiarity since they rely on existing icons which are more or less familiar to potential users. ...
Icons play an important role in modern interfaces and therefore recent empirical research has focused on enhancing icon processing — that is, icon perception and icon function understanding. However, in existing sets, icons vary simultaneously across different icon characteristics, confusing the contribution of each to icon processing. We developed icon design principles for aesthetics, complexity, and concreteness, and used them to create 64 icons that varied independently along each dimension. Participants reported the icon function and rated each icon in terms of aesthetics, complexity and concreteness. The manipulated dimensions had independent effects on icon processing, with two exceptions, for which we propose evidence-based solutions. Based on these findings we propose guidelines for designing icons for research purposes.
... Affordance design significantly affects the user's visual perception, and a reasonable interface icon state has high affordance . The specificity of the icon has long been regarded as one of the influencing factors based on the user experience (McDougall, Curry, and Bruijn, 1999), which refers to "the degree to which the icon describes things that people are already familiar with within the real world and daily life" (McDougall, Bruijn and Curry, 2000). Obviously, the interface design of the smart home central control system affects the user's visual perception, especially the icon style design is particularly important. ...
Intelligent technology changes the world, promotes the integration and development of industries, and changes people's way of life and form. The smart home central control system, which is closely related to our daily life, is comfortable, safe, highly stable, and reliable. This research purpose was to explore the affordance of gender visual perception for the interface design of a smart central control system. The experimental was adopted a 2 x 3 mixed factorial design to help explore whether different gender and operation modes may affect users’ visual perception. We employed convenience sampling and recruited a total of 12 participants to participate in this experiment. The experimental data were collected in relation to task performance using the system usability scale (SUS), subjective evaluations, and semi-structured interviews. The generated results revealed that: (1) The task performance shows that the interface design of the smart home central control system affects the participants' visual perception. (2) Females generally believe that the three smart home central control system interface designs are logical and innovative. (3) There was an interaction between gender and operation mode, the logic and innovation of the operation interface affected participants' perception of interaction.
This article, from the perspective of structural features, focuses on in-car user interface icons and explores the impact of different icon structural features on visual search efficiency. Initially, we categorised the icons into four groups based on structural features: individual structure icons (ISI), enclosed structure icons (ESI), horizontal structure icons (HSI) and vertical structure icons (VSI). Subsequently, we conducted a visual search experiment with structure as the sole variable, recording participants' behaviours and eye-tracking data. Finally, data analysis was conducted using methods including analysis of variance and logistic regression. The results indicate that differences in icon structural features significantly affect visual search efficiency, showcasing significant intergroup differences. HSI exhibit the highest visual search efficiency, while ESI show the lowest efficiency. ISI have shorter response times but the lowest matching accuracy. VSI only perform better than ESI. These findings hold significant implications for optimising icon design and enhancing visual search efficiency.
Models play an important role in systems analysis and design (SAD). A diagrammatic model is defined as a mapping from a domain to a visual representation in such a way that relevant information is preserved to meet a specific goal. So far, cognitive research on diagram criteria in relation to task performance has been fragmented. The aim of this paper is to (1) consolidate research on the cognitive processing steps involved during understanding and task performance with diagrams, (2) consolidate corresponding criteria for such diagrams to best support cognitive processing, and (3) demonstrate the support effective diagrams provide for performing SAD tasks. Addressing the first aim, we develop a theoretical cognitive framework of task performance with diagrams called CogniDia. It integrates different cognitive theories from research on diagrams in software engineering and information systems. Regarding the second aim, we review the literature to organize criteria for effective cognitive processing of diagrams. We identify research gaps on verbal and task processing. Regarding the third aim, we use the theoretical cognitive framework to investigate how diagrams support the SAD process effectively.
Presents a standardized set of 260 pictures for use in experiments investigating differences and similarities in the processing of pictures and words. The pictures are black-and-white line drawings executed according to a set of rules that provide consistency of pictorial representation. They have been standardized on 4 variables of central relevance to memory and cognitive processing: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. The intercorrelations among the 4 measures were low, suggesting that they are indices of different attributes of the pictures. The concepts were selected to provide exemplars from several widely studied semantic categories. Sources of naming variance, and mean familiarity and complexity of the exemplars, differed significantly across the set of categories investigated. The potential significance of each of the normative variables to a number of semantic and episodic memory tasks is discussed. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The purpose of this research was to develop a performance-based criterion for selecting among alternative symbols to be used in graphic displays. The specific criterion developed was an index of perceptual discriminability. Through regression analyses of an intersymbol similarity-rating matrix, it was concluded that symbols are judged more or less similar on the basis of the number of shared versus unique configural attributes (an X, a triangle, etc.), as opposed to primitive attributes (number of lines, arcs, etc.). An easy-to-use discriminability-index formula was derived from the regression analysis involving the configural attributes, and this formula was used to predict the results of an experiment involving a search for specific symbols embedded in an array. Indices obtained from a formula such as the one developed here could be used as part of the basis for choosing among alternative candidate symbols for inclusion in an existing symbol domain.
Two studies are reported on the usability of icons. Firstly, an experiment was carried out to investigate the transfer of performance between sets of icons for different computer functions. The aim was to determine whether users would benefit from common underlying elements within concrete icon sets, compared with unrelated abstract icons. A cross-over study was employed whereby subjects performed an icon identification task with one set of icons (a concrete or abstract learning set) and then transferred to another set of icons (a concrete or abstract transfer set). It was hypothesized that transferring from concrete to concrete icons would yield the best results due to the use of repeated elements in the concrete sets. Identification time data did not produce significant results to support the hypothesis. Significant results were yielded from the error data, this demonstrated the superiority of concrete icons, but no advantage came from previous experience with a concrete set. A second study examined the rating of the icons used in the first study in terms of concreteness and appropriateness. Appropriateness was found to be a reasonable predictor of icon identification time.
Traditional methods of evaluating icon comprehension and discriminability have relied on a sequence of multiple screening tests to measure various aspects of icon meaning, image content, and the user's perception of the icon. The most frequently used procedures have been the icon appropriateness test to determine the best conceptual design from a group of icon candidates, followed by the icon matching test to ensure that individual icons are not confused with others in a set. This paper describes an automated paired-comparison test procedure that provides reliable measures of both icon appropriateness and icon discriminability using the same test method with a single metric. The procedure was validated in two experiments involving the design and evaluation of two different mouse-pointer icons. In Experiment 1, the procedure was used as an icon screening test to determine the most appropriate and meaningful icon that best represented each concept from two different sets of proposed icon variants. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was then used to confirm the discriminability of the final icon selections, and to verify the accuracy of results from the initial appropriateness test.
Pictograms and icons that are not easily recognised by the users run the risk of being under-used or even superfluous. Well-designed pictograms allow the user to recognise the represented functions of a device (e.g. of a computer interface) without the need of extra instruction.It is argued that it is imperative that pictograms be empirically tested in order to establish whether the user does indeed associate the appropriate referent. A number of pictogram evaluation methods are available with some of them being restricted to certain applications only and others having considerable methodological drawbacks. The Multiple Index Approach for the evaluation of pictograms is presented which has been developed by the Technical Committee Human Factors of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). It focuses on both correct associations and errors and takes into account aesthetic as well as performance parameters.
A new model of the visual search process is developed which can improve the design of large symbol sets such as those used by nuclear power plant personnel, air traffic controllers, and battlefield troops. An experiment was conducted to determine whether the new, componential model or an already existing, discriminability model better explains visual search behavior. The results were consistent with the componential model. We show how to use the componential model to help automate selection of the optimal symbol set (i.e., the symbol set that minimizes the average time to find a target).
A discriminability evaluation was performed on a proposed Space and
Missile Warning symbol set. Our analysis focused on the discriminability
of the symbols and the application of the information coding techniques.
Inconsistent or inappropriate use of coding techniques can affect a
user's interpretation of the symbol's intended meaning. Potential
problems included the similarity of individual symbols, use of
alphanumeric markers and partially shaded symbols, and the lack of
guidance on the minimum size of the symbols. After a lengthy review of
previous research, we felt the literature could not provide adequate
solutions. A two-part discriminability study was conducted to test the
overall effects of the information coding techniques on
discriminability, to identify individual symbols with low
discriminability, and to determine an appropriate minimum size for these
symbols. Search time was used as a measure of symbol discriminability.
Size, shape, markers, and shading had significant effects on search time
and errors. The experiments confirmed the suspected discriminability
problems and modifications were made to the existing symbol set to
create three new alternative symbol sets. Testing performed on these new
symbol sets revealed that many of the problem areas from the original
symbol set had been improved. Design guidelines and a new modified
symbol set were proposed for review by the operational community.
Six icon sets, depicting either abstract symbols, concrete objects operated on, concrete analogies associated with the action or combinations of these were constructed to represent 20 commands covering a range of word processing operation areas. Using a questionnaire, 60 subjects (10 for each set) were required to match the icons to the commands they thought they referred to. Significant differences were found between the icon sets. Specifically, the icon sets with the most direct mapping (i. e. those depicting concrete objects operated on) were found to have the highest number of correct matches, with over 85% of the icons being correctly identified. An interaction between icon set and type of command was also found indicating that some commands can be represented in a range of pictorial forms while for other commands the type of pictorial form is critical. The results from this experiment are discussed in relation to the demands made on the cognitive resources for the comprehension of visual symbols.
A search-and-select paradigm was adopted to investigate which visual characteristics of icons are relevant for menu selection. Two icon sets (abstract icons, representational icons) were compared to a word command set. For abstract icons, global features were used in order lo maximize their visual distinctiveness. For representational icons local features were used in order to ensure a high degree of representativeness and a small “articulatory distance”. Results revealed that abstract icons were searched and selected much faster than both word commands and representational icons. In addition, response time functions indicated that abstract icons can be searched in parallel (no effect of menu size) whereas word commands and representational icons have to be searched sequentially. Error rates were small in all conditions, and there was no indication of a speed-accuracy tradeoff. Thus, when icons are used in menu selection, visual distinctiveness (due to global features) seems to override respresentativeness (due to local features).