How Mobile Apps Seize Our Attention?

New study analyzes how users pay visual attention to mobile app designs and reveal that larger and brighter elements don't catch our eyes after all. The findings of the study are presented at the MobileHCI20. Aalto University researchers, as part of international collaboration, have shown that our common understanding of what draws visual attention to screens, in fact, does not transfer to mobile applications.

The previous study on what attracts visual attention, or visual saliency, has focused on desktop and web-interfaces.

'Apps appear individually on the phone than on a desktop computer or browser: they're on a smaller screen which fits fewer elements and, instead of a horizontal view, mobile devices usually use a vertical layout. Until now it was not clear how these factors would impact how apps actually attract our eyes,' states Aalto University Professor Antti Oulasvirta.

In the study, the research team utilized a large set of representative mobile interfaces and eye-tracking to observe how users look at mobile apps' screenshots for both Apple iOS devices and Android.

'It really came as a surprise that bright colours didn't impact how people fixate on app details. One possible cause is that the mobile interface itself is full of glossy and colorful elements, so everything on the screen could potentially catch your attention. It appears that when everything is made to stand out, nothing pops out in the end,' states lead author Luis Leiva.

Image elements drew visual attention more often than anticipated for the area they cover, though the average length of time users spent looking at images was alike to other app elements. Faces, too, attracted concentrated attention, though when accompanied by text, eyes shift much closer to the location of text.

Advertisement

'Various factors impact where our visual attention goes. For photos, these factors include edges, texture, color, and motion. But when it comes to generated visual content, like graphical user interfaces, design composition is an important factor to consider,' reports Dr. Hamed Tavakoli, who was also part of the Aalto University research team.

Source-Medindia