Evidence for global feature superiority in menu selection by icons

Abstract

A search-and-select paradigm was adopted to investigate which visual characteristics of icons are relevant for menu selection. Two icon sets (abstract icons, representational icons) were compared to a word command set. For abstract icons, global features were used in order lo maximize their visual distinctiveness. For representational icons local features were used in order to ensure a high degree of representativeness and a small “articulatory distance”. Results revealed that abstract icons were searched and selected much faster than both word commands and representational icons. In addition, response time functions indicated that abstract icons can be searched in parallel (no effect of menu size) whereas word commands and representational icons have to be searched sequentially. Error rates were small in all conditions, and there was no indication of a speed-accuracy tradeoff. Thus, when icons are used in menu selection, visual distinctiveness (due to global features) seems to override respresentativeness (due to local features).