Effects of six different highlighting modes on visual search performance in menu options

Highlighting (HI), for example of menu options, is usually considered as improving information processing efficiency. Particularly relevant are the attention effects of valid (target) highlighting, when contrasted with the effects of highlighting distracting information (invalid HI). A visual search experiment was conducted to analyze the requirements of such an overall performance gain under valid HI. The efficiency of six different modes of highlighting (brightness increase, reverse video, color [red], reverse color, blue‐on‐yellow, and red‐on‐green) on a black screen background was determined. Sixty‐two subjects indicated the presence of a prespecified menu option in a list of CAD menu options, of which a subset was highlighted on every trial. Also varied was familiarity of highlighting. Dependent measures were the absolute performance scores (search time and accuracy) and highlighting benefits. Significant absolute performance differences between the modes were found. They were accompanied by a marked dissociation between the absolute and the benefit measures. The HI benefits were calculated as the individual performance differences between target‐highlighted trials (valid HI) and target‐standard (invalid HI) conditions. The bright white mode, which caused the shortest absolute search time, did not result in a benefit. In contrast, the red color condition produced a large benefit, accompanied by only mid‐range absolute performance. The widely used reverse video modes generally led to the poorest performance. Familiarity of highlighting had a differential effect, depending on the dependent measure preferred. Recommendations for the use of highlighting in display design are given.