Heloisa Martins Shih

Effects of training and representational characteristics in icon design

Icons are a very important component of graphical user interfaces. However, icon design is still predominantly artistic in nature and as a result icon selection is generally based on usability evaluations after a set of alternative icons are developed. This process tends to be time-consuming and costly. In this research, we address the issues ofwhat should be depicted in an icon, given the function it should represent, and how training affects the performance of novice users when using an iconic interface. A set of 36 concrete icons (12 functions) were selected and tested with a total of 30 participants. The experimental results indicate that complete representations are generally superior for both untrained and trained participants. Results also show that trained participants had shorter response times when compared to untrained participants. Further analysis suggests that ambiguity, uniqueness and dominance are three important aspects to consider when designing and developing icons. Applications of this research include the design of appropriate icons for graphical user interfaces prior to usability testing and the importance of a short training period to illustrate the composition of an icon in an effort to improve the mental model associated with each design.

Effectiveness of menu orientation in Chinese

Graphical user interface guidelines have been developed predominantly in English-speaking countries, but aspects related to culture (e.g., local metaphors, symbols, color, and flow) are not universal and have received little or no attention. Even though the reading and writing flow of languages such as English, Japanese, and Chinese differ widely, most software interfaces do not take account of this. In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of menu flow or menu orientation in both the Chinese and English languages for Chinese users. The experimental results indicate that for the Chinese population, a horizontal menu in either language is more effective than the vertical orientation. Thus item differentiation in menus is best performed when the natural flow of the users native language is broken through a transformation process similar to a matrix transpose. Even though we did not investigate search strategies explicitly, we hypothesize that the primary reason for the difference lies in the scanning patterns adopted by the Chinese population in search tasks so that there is no mismatch in the reading metaphors. Applications of this research include the design of culturally and linguistically adapted human-computer interfaces for Chinese users.

Visual search strategies and eye movements when searching Chinese character screens

Most visual search studies have been restricted to alphanumeric stimulus materials. Research related to scanning patterns of Chinese characters is sparse. This study is an attempt to understand the differences and similarities in visual search of Chinese characters having a varying degree of complexity among Hong Kong Chinese, Mainland Chinese and Chinese reading non-Chinese people. Eighteen participants were tested on Chinese character screens with three layouts (row, column, and uniform separation) and two word complexities (high and low). The 18 participants comprised six Hong Kong Chinese, six Mainland Chinese and six non-native Chinese readers. Performance data and eye movement data were recorded. The percent correct and search time were the two performance measures. A new measure, called HV-ratio was developed to characterize eye movements. The results show that Hong Kong Chinese use predominantly horizontal search patterns while the Mainland Chinese change their search pattern depending on the layout presented. Non-native Chinese readers, on the other hand, do not seem to show any preference on scanning strategy for a given layout. Word complexity did not show any significant effect on search time. Potential reasons for these differences and design implications are discussed.