Using Salience to Guide Searches in Digital Displays

Abstract

Technological innovations including software applications and the internet have increased the ability to collect and store information. However, the increasing amounts of information are used by operators who are constrained by their limited cognitive processing capacity. One common approach to improve the search for information in digital displays is the concept of increased stimulus-driven salience to guide the user. To examine search efficiency, sufficiency and decision accuracy we conducted an experiment to explore the effect of the congruence of salience and relevance and the effect of salience manipulation (position or size). Our study adapted the Wason selection task and manipulated salience by size in a tag cloud and position in a list. The results show that increased salience of relevant items does not insure an optimal search. Care should be taken to match salience with relevance; however, increased salience should not be expected to promote a sufficient search with increased decision accuracy.