Initial empirical studies of how users pay visual attention to visual app designs show that larger and lighter elements do not attract our attention after all.
As part of an international collaboration, researchers at Aalto University have shown that our shared understanding of what draws visual attention to screens is in fact not carried over to mobile applications. Despite the widespread use of mobile phones and tablets in our daily lives, this is the first study to empirically test how users’ eyes follow commonly used elements of mobile apps.
Previous work on visual attentions or visual peculiarities focused on desktop and web interfaces.
“Apps look different on a phone than they do on a desktop computer or browser: they’re on a smaller screen that simply shows fewer items, and mobile devices typically use a vertical layout instead of a horizontal view. Until now it was unclear how these factors would affect how apps actually attract our eyes, ”explains Antti Oulasvirta, professor at Aalto University.
In the study, the research team used a large number of representative mobile interfaces and eye tracking to see how users view screenshots from mobile apps for Android and Apple iOS devices.
Researchers at Aalto University, together with international staff, conducted the first empirical study examining how users pay visual attention to the design of mobile apps. Photo credit: Marianne Lenoir / Aalto University
After careful consideration, our eyes should not only jump to larger or lighter elements, but also stay there longer. Previous studies have also shown that when viewing certain types of images, our attention is drawn to the center of the screen and is not horizontally but horizontally across the screen. The researchers found that these principles have little impact on mobile interfaces.
“It was actually a surprise that light colors didn’t affect how people fixated on app details. One possible reason is that the mobile surface itself is full of shiny and colorful elements, so anything on the screen can grab your attention – it’s just the way they’re designed. It seems that in the end nothing will come out if everything is noticed, ”says lead author and postdoc Luis Leiva.
Eye fixations appear as red circles on different parts of the mobile surface. The radius of each circle increases proportionally to the fixation time. Photo credit: Luis Leiva / Aalto University
The study also confirms that several other design principles apply to mobile apps. For example, the gaze shifts to the upper left corner to show the exploration or scanning. Text plays an important role, probably because of its role in conveying information. Therefore, when first used, users tend to focus on text elements of a mobile app as parts of icons, labels and logos.
Image elements attracted visual attention more often than expected for the area they cover, although the average time users spent viewing images was similar to other app elements. Faces also attracted focused attention, although when accompanied by text the eyes wander much closer to the place of the text.
“Various factors affect where our visual attention goes. For photos, these factors include color, edges, texture, and movement. However, when it comes to generated visual content such as graphical user interfaces, the design composition is a decisive factor, ”says Dr. Hamed Tavakoli, who was also part of the Aalto University research team.
The study was completed with international collaborators such as IIT Goa (India), Yildiz Technical University (Turkey) and Huawei Technologies (China). The team will present the results on October 6, 2020 at MobileHCI’20, the flagship conference on human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services.
