Visual Saliency Predicts Fixations in Low Clutter Web Pages. (September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hicks, John M.; Cain, Ashley A.; Still, Jeremiah D.
• Is Part Of: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting. Volume 61:Part 1(2017)
• Page Start: 1114
• Page End: 1118
• Publication Date: 2017-09
• Subjects: Human engineering -- Congresses; 620.8205
• DOI: 10.1177/1541931213601883
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1541-9312

Abstract

Previous research has shown a computational model of visual saliency can predict where people fixate in cluttered web pages (Masciocchi & Still, 2013). Over time, web site designers are moving towards simpler, less cluttered webpages to improve aesthetics and to make searches more efficient. Even with simpler interfaces, determining a saliency ranking among interface elements is a difficult task. Also, it is unclear whether the traditionally employed saliency model (Itti, Koch, & Niebur, 1998) can be applied to simpler interfaces. To examine the model's ability to predict fixations in simple web pages we compared a distribution of observed fixations to a conservative measure of chance performance (a shuffled distribution). Simplicity was determined by using two visual clutter models (Rosenholz, Li, & Nakano, 2007). We found under free-viewing conditions that the saliency model was able to predict fixations within less cluttered web pages.