Visual search on a mobile device while walking

Abstract

Previous studies have examined the effects of walking and user interface elements on mobile task performance, using physical target selection tasks. The current study investigated the effect of walking and user interface elements on visual search on a mobile device, isolating the effects on perceptual and cognitive processes. The effects of object size, contrast, and target location on mobile devices while walking and standing were examined. A serial visual search using "T" and "L" shapes on a mobile device, which controlled for physical target selection involvement was conducted. The results showed that walking, bigger object size, and the target position in the outer area of the mobile device display slowed the visual search response time. This suggests that walking causes a negative performance effect not only on the physical task but also on the cognitive process while interacting with the mobile user interface. In addition, the results of the study suggest that the placing of major content and call-to-action items in the inner area of the display are likely to improve task performance on a mobile device.v DEDICATION

D-Swime

“…Crossan et al proposed wrist-rotation [10] and head-tilting [9] as complementary modalities to interact with portable devices under mobility contexts. [23] examined the influence on human perception under walking conditions. Results showed that an increase of mobility pace and targets in the inner area of the mobile screen have a negative impact on visual search.…”

“…Such activity contexts can be viewed along at least two axes: (i) the degree of user mobility; and (ii) hand encumbrance. The degree of mobility can range from being inactive (standing or sitting), active (walking), or highly active (running) [5,23,24,34,35]. Hand encumbrance includes having both hands available for interaction, or having only one-hand or even no-hands available, such as when holding items using two hands [30].…”

Comparing evaluation methods for encumbrance and walking on interaction with touchscreen mobile devices

“…As an alternative, researchers have replicated real world settings by creating walking routes indoors [3,14,25] and outdoors [5,12,13] for users to navigate. Some studies [3,14,15] have also added obstacles to the walking path to increase the user's cognitive workload. Barnard et al [3] varied room illumination to simulate realistic lighting changes to reproduce "an actual user experience" when comparing treadmill and ground walking.…”

“…Similarly, Lin et al [15] stated that users were able to maintain 90% accuracy at the expense of dropping 36% of their walking speed when users walked around a predefined route. Lim and Feria [14] reported a decrease in walking speed of 22% when conducting a visual searching experiment on a handheld device. Mizobuchi et al [18] recorded a low average walking speed of 1.77 km/h when examining different button dimensions to identify the optimal size for text entry via stylus input.…”