Search Performance and Aesthetics: Harmonious Colours and Grouping for a Better User Interface

Abstract

Visual search is people's essential natural mechanism to execute day-to-day tasks that occur mainly on digital screens and control panels. Human interaction with digital devices is usually dependent on the visual elements of the screen, which draw attention and guide users to the element of interest. This study investigated the impact of colour harmonies and their grouping patterns on the visual search performance and direct manipulation tasks on a table-like cluttered interface. The results obtained in this study show that different colour harmonies affect time performance of visual search tasks. Search performance is changing due to different colour harmonies. The use of split complementary and triadic colour palettes for the UI design outperforms analogous colours in visual search performance. The research also shows that any colours of the specific colour harmony can be used without influencing search performance, in other words, search performance will not change if the same colour harmony is used. Results also imply that colour coding using different grouping patterns affects visual search performance.

Keywords

• colour harmonies
• coloured interface
• grouping pattern
• user interface
• visual search performance