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Web page attentional priority model

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Abstract

Designing an interface that is both information rich and easy to search is challenging. Successfully finding a solution depends on understanding an interface’s explicit and implicit influences. A cognitively inspired computational approach is taken to make the implicit influences apparent to designers. A saliency model has already been shown to predict the deployment of attention within web page interfaces. It predicts regions likely to be salient, based on local contrast stemming from the bottom-up channels (e.g., color, orientation). This research replicates these previous findings and extends the work by proposing a web page-specific attentional priority (AP) model. This AP model includes previous interaction experience history, manifested as conventions, within the already valuable saliency model. These sources of influence automatically nudge our attention to regions that usually contain useful visual information. This research shows that, by integrating spatial conventions with a saliency model, designers can better predict the deployment of attention within web page interfaces.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Old Dominion University, 250 Mills Godwin Building, Norfolk, VA, 23529-0267, USA

    Jeremiah D. Still

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  1. Jeremiah D. Still
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Correspondence to Jeremiah D. Still.

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Still, J.D. Web page attentional priority model. Cogn Tech Work 19, 363–374 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-017-0411-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-017-0411-9

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