Many recent researches focused on packaging elements as two separate groups: visual and informative elements. This study goes deeper into the group of visual elements on food packaging (i.e. strawberry chocolate packaging) in order to investigate their ability to attract attention. The elements tested in the study were: typeface, graphics, pattern and colour. The study included 90 people who participated by filling out an online questionnaire. The participants' task was to choose, among packaging designs with the manipulated visual elements, the one they preferred. According to the results, typeface did not affect participants' preferences. On the contrary, graphics, patterns and colours had a significant impact on the choices. Participants preferred photography over illustration, concrete pattern over abstract and vivid colours over dull. These results can be used as guidelines in marketing and design.

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The aim of the study was to investigate whether the eco-mark on the product packaging influences the perception of the product and the attractiveness of its packaging. In the first experiment, we tested three packaging designs (i.e. without eco-mark, with a standard Croatian eco-mark, with a redesigned eco-mark) using a rating scale for the measurement of perceived quality and a selection task for the measurement of participants' preferences. In the second experiment we manipulated the position of the eco-mark (i.e. in the center and in the corner) and tested its influence on the perceived quality and the attractiveness of the packaging. The results showed that the participants preferred packaging with the eco-mark, regardless of the variations in its design. The location of the eco-mark in the corner was better rated than in the center of the packaging, which indicates that people's perception of the packaging seems to be more influenced by the positon of the eco-mark than by its design characteristics.

Instruction manuals provide important messages about the proper use of a product. They should communicate in such a way that they facilitate users' searches for specific information. Despite the increasing research interest in visual search, there is a lack of empirical knowledge concerning the role of pictograms in search performance during the browsing of a manual's pages. This study investigates how the inclusion of pictograms improves the search for the target information. Furthermore, it examines whether this search process is influenced by the visual similarity between the pictograms and the searched for information. On the basis of eye-tracking measurements, as objective indicators of the participants' visual attention, it was found that pictograms can be a useful element of search strategy. Another interesting finding was that boldface highlighting is a more effective method for improving user experience in information seeking, rather than the similarity between the pictorial and adjacent textual information. Implications for designing effective user manuals are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Users often view instruction manuals with the aim of finding specific information. We used eye-tracking technology to examine different manual pages in order to improve the user's visual search for target information. The results indicate that the use of pictograms and bold highlighting of relevant information facilitate the search process.

The spread of invasive alien plant species (IAPS) is a leading reason for worldwide environmental change due to their effects on biodiversity and humans. Some valued goods from IAPS have been produced, e.g. paper that consists of cellulose fibres from Japanese knotweed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the usability of this paper grade as a printing substrate, since it does not have ideal optical properties as it is expected from commercial office paper. Because it is widely used, inkjet printing technology was employed. Print permanence is essential, especially when printing documents. However, typographic characteristics must be considered to make a text more legible. Two widely used typefaces (Arial and Times) were tested in three commonly used type sizes (8 pt, 10 pt, and 12 pt). The results showed that the paper made from Japanese knotweed could have valuable properties and suitable legibility, especially when using typefaces with a moderate counter size, high x-height, and minimal differences in the letter stroke width to obtain an appropriate typographic tonal density with an adequate type size. Even after exposure to light, the texts printed in a proper type size and stroke width remained visible.