In search of salience:

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In search of salience

• A Response-time and Eye-movement
• Analysis of Bookmark Recognition
• Alex Poole, Linden J Ball Peter Phillips
• Lancaster University, UK

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Information overload

• Too many websites!
• Now easier to find websites
• Not easier to manage webpages
• Bookmarks a common tool
• Bad bookmarks make it hard to relocate webpages
• Frustration and lost time!

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The problem with bookmarks
Users complain that

• text is often missing
• bookmarks are Untitled
• text doesnt match page content
• every page has the same bookmark
• text too long
• text not descriptive enough

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Icons

• Pros
• Easy to spot because they pop-out
• Cons
• Can be as obscure as text
• The more icons there are, the less they pop-out

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Thumbnails

• Pros
• Easy-to-recognise features (colours, shapes,
  borders, etc.)
• Cons
• Text pages hard to identify
• Pages from same site can look the same
• Can be big

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Graphical bookmarks Common problems

• Not so good for visually-impaired users
• Hard for computer to interpret and index
  graphical bookmarks automatically
• May not transpose well to devices with small
  screens (PDAs, mobile phones etc)

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What makes a good bookmark?
Basic guidelines

• Bookmark text must exist
• No Untitled bookmarks
• Bookmark must match the page content
• Every page must have unique bookmark
• Not too long
• Relevant information

• Title of the page
• Name of the website
• Description of the website
• Author name
• Date
• Section name
• Reference numbers

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The experiment
Domain News websites
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Predictions

• 1. Left-most cue more visible
• 2. More information is better
• 3. Page title more salient than site name
• page title more relevant for goals
• evokes better imagery
• better fit into existing knowledge structures

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Measuring salience

• 1. Time taken to find bookmark
• 2. Eye movements that reflect information
  processing

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Participants

• 30 mainly post-graduate students
• Age range 15-65, average age 30-35
• 12 female, 18 male
• All had normal or corrected to normal vision
• Regular users of the Web
• Most had never seen or used the websites in the
  test

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Encoding task
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Search task
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Design

• 2x3 within subjects design
• 1st factor bookmark format (top-down/bottom-up)
• 2nd factor number of cues

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Results
Majority of eye fixations and saccades
concentrated on left side of bookmark menu
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Results
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Results
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Results
Significant difference between number of cues
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Results
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Results
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Results
Significant difference between - number of
cues - bookmark format
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Results
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Results
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Results
Significant difference between - number of
cues - bookmark format
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Discussion

• Prediction 1 Left-most cue more visible
• Yes, users scan down the left hand side of the
  list
• Place most salient items where they will be
  noticed, ie first
• Prediction 2 More information is better
• 1 cue inadequate
• 2 cues optimal
• 3 cues no effect
• More information is better but only if it fits in
  available space
• Prediction 3 Page title more salient than site
  name
• top-down format less salient than bottom-up
  format
• page titles easier to remember more relevant

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Outcome

• Guidelines
• Basic
• Information
• 2 cues
• Bottom-up (Page title - site name)
• Sort bookmarks by cue

Benefits
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In search of salience

• A Response-time and Eye-movement
• Analysis of Bookmark Recognition
• Alex Poole, Linden J Ball Peter Phillips
• Lancaster University, UK
• www.alexpoole.info