https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2568-2517
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Abstract
Application icons are a pivotal part of graphical user interface of mobile devices. Despite a trend away from complexity to simplicity in user interface design, there is lack of evidence supporting the superiority of icon simplicity from a psychophysiological perspective. This study investigates the effects of icon complexity and simplicity on user cognition using an event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. Eighteen participants completed an icon cognition and evaluation experiment in an electrophysiological laboratory. Their subjective evaluations, behavioral data, and ERP data were recorded and analyzed. The results of subjective evaluation showed that the simplest icons were regarded as more useful in helping subjects extract icon information than more complex ones. For the ERP measures, P1 amplitudes induced by complex icons were larger than those elicited by simple icons. In the parietal area, P2 amplitudes and latency were larger and later for complex icons than for simple ones. Simple icons are subjectively more helpful than complex ones, partially because they demand fewer attention resources in early stimulus-driven perceptual detection of icon features (P1 during 120–190 ms) and induce more positive emotional arousal (P2 during 190–200 ms). Simple icon designs minimize cognitive demands and are deemed more helpful than complex ones. Our study highlights that the ERP technique represents a tool to explore how users process icon and interface design.
Acknowledgment
We thank all the participants for carrying out the experiments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Weilin Liu
Weilin Liu is an associate professor at the School of Management Engineering at Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, China. She received her PhD degree in Management Science and Engineering from the Northeastern University at Shenyang in 2017. She specializes in user experience and emotional design.
Yaqin Cao
Yaqin Cao is a professor from the Department of Industrial Engineering at Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China. She received her PhD degree in Management Science and Engineering from the Northeastern University at Shenyang in 2014. Her research interests include emotional design, user experience design, and human–computer interaction.
Xiaoning Liang
Xiaoning Liang is an assistant professor in marketing at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland. Her research interests include marketing performance measurement, dynamic capabilities, digital marketing, and cross-cultural adjustment.
Robert W. Proctor
Robert W. Proctor is a distinguished professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University and Fellow of Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. He received his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1975.
Vincent G. Duffy
Vincent G. Duffy is a professor from the School of Industrial Engineering in Purdue University. He was the chair for conferences on Digital Human Modelling (Part of HCI International) since 2007. His research interests include digital human modeling, safety engineering, work methods, and measurement and ergonomics.