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Optimizing Visual Cues in Educational Software

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Augmented Cognition (HCII 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 13310))

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Abstract

This study examined the effects of software graphical user interface (GUI) visual cues in educational software on user performance. It specifically studied the effectiveness of three distinct and commonly used visual cues -- bolded text, buttons, and arrows to guide a software application user through a series of tasks. The study attempted to prove the hypothesis that specific visual cues in educational software applications could decrease task time.

The study population consisted of a group of 134 post-secondary undergraduate students in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, that engaged in a web-based educational software simulation which recorded response times when prompted by each of the three distinct visual cues.

The web-based simulation consisted of six steps. Each step consisted of a simple question and the appearance of a new visual cue to lead the participant to the next step only after selecting the correct answer. Each step of the experiment was automatically timed and recorded in milliseconds from the moment the participant selected the correct answer until the moment they clicked on the visual cue to proceed to the next step.

Slower response times indicated that during the first two steps, participants were still scanning the screen for the visual cue after they selected the correct answer. Of the three cues studied on the first two steps of the simulation, the Arrows and Bolded text were clearly the most quickly recognized cues among participants, while the response times for the Button cue were significantly slower.

However, in the last four steps of the simulation, no visual cue could be identified as the leader in participant response times. This would indicate that, since the visual cues were consistently in the same position, the participants acclimated to the position of the cue. At this point, there was no notable differences in response times among the different cues.

This study suggests that using arrows and/or bolded text in educational software are better choices for visual cues than buttons. It also suggests that keeping visual cues for common functions in a consistent location is optimal.

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Acknowledgement

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1662487. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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  1. University of Hawaiʻi, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    David Stevens

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  1. David Stevens
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Correspondence to David Stevens .

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  1. Soar Technology Inc., Orlando, FL, USA

    Dylan D. Schmorrow

  2. Katmai Government Services, Orlando, FL, USA

    Cali M. Fidopiastis

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Stevens, D. (2022). Optimizing Visual Cues in Educational Software. In: Schmorrow, D.D., Fidopiastis, C.M. (eds) Augmented Cognition. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13310. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05457-0_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05457-0_23

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