Graphical Layout Analysis From Aesthetics And Cognitive Load Perspective

User Interface(UI)design,especially discrete objects and their graphical layout in interfaces,determines user experience(UX).Herein,we aim to explore the different UI layouts and shapes in interfaces from aesthetics and cognitive load perspective by employing subjective and eye-tracker data with two tasks in hand,namely passive viewing and visual search.The titled research bring to light some interesting insights and even though various shapes and layouts are in practice while designing different interfaces yet,we provides empirical evidences and tries to convert de facto to de jure(metaphorically)that which shapes and layouts should be adopted in accordance to application of interfaces.A guidelines framework for layout’s design is inferred based on the analytical results of measured matrices.Twenty participants attended an eye tracker based within subject experiment encompassed four studies aiming tasks of visual search and passive viewing In accordance with stimuli design,two categories of arrangements including primitive square grid and hexagonal,partly composed of four basic geometric shapes such as circle,hexagon,rounded square and square in former,whereas only hexagon in latter case of arrangement were used.This combination resulted into five different layouts namely;Circle(C),HexaSquare(HS),RoundedSquare(RS),Square(S)and Hexagon(H).Cognitive workload and aesthetics were measured through NASA-TLX and eye tracking in which fixation and saccades were identified using I-VT filter with default parameters by Tobii.Analysis of variance(ANOVA)was conducted for all measures with a significance level of 95%and to reveal significant differences between groups,Student-Newman-Keuls(SNK)post-hoc test was applied.The research focuses on the influence of complexity level of different layouts for the information search performance,the retrospective appraisals of aesthetics,mental load,usability and development of optimum presentation mode so that operational efficiency could be enhance.Investigated results showed that the H layout performs best in visual search tasks followed by RS and C layouts.Comparatively,RS layout is most preferable in passive viewing followed by H and C layouts whereas S and HS are least aesthetic in either cases therefore,should be abandoned.As per our evaluation for designing individual artifacts of UI,geometric shape with smooth and fewer edges,such as circle or rounded square,should be given preference over shapes with sharp edges e.g.square or hexagon since prior are soothing to perceive.Additionally,our preliminary findings provides a way out to a problem;which part of interface gets more attention and whether users’ eye pattern is systematic or random i.e.scanning of different interfaces is primarily driven by the interface itself or auxiliary variables,which is,users gaze can be drive through cues by controlling white space surroundings visual elements within interface.The findings could be of interest to UI/UX designers while designing layouts to enhance user experience and control the cognitive workload.