Lab 4 - Contd

Perception and Attention

Visual perception

I played the following visual blink game and scored a brain age of 42! http://www.freebrainagegames.com/games/visual_blink.php

In my first attempt of the Spot It game I scored 8.
http://www.blueorangegames.com/spotit/

While playing both games I noticed that even after staring at the images for a long time the differences and similarities were not easily detected.

Graphics, color, lines, patterns and background shading can be positioned in ways that disrupt vision, make the image appear distorted in size, color or depth, create blind spots and after images. It is important to design a webpage with careful consideration given to how it will be perceived so that the end user can understand and interact with the webpage without difficulty and so that the page is perceived as intended. Indeed perception and the identification of images will also be influenced by the viewer’s intuition.

Visual memory

In the following game I reached level 8/20. http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/patternMemory/patternMemory.htm

This game made me aware of the limitations of short term memory as there is only so much visual information I can remember in one second and it also made me aware of the methods I use while trying to memorise information quickly.

The Gestalt principles of similarity and proximity were used. The objects were the same shape and colour which made them easier to recognise and it was easier to recall the objects when they were grouped together. Closure was used to memorise objects when a grouping resembled a shape.

Positioning similar elements together in a webpage can make it easier for the user to interact and learn how to use a website, as it creates a logical association between elements. The user will easily recognise parts of the page which are related and then recall them easily when navigating a page. The positioning of dissimilar elements can be used to draw attention to focal points

Testing attention and working memory

http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/09/28/attention-and-working-memory/

While playing the above game I focused entirely on the players in the white t-shirts and did not see the gorilla!
Users will only focus on what they are looking for in a webpage and not pay attention to elements of the page that are not related to their goals. For example users have learned to selectively ignore banners as these are usually advertisements.  Thus a webpage must be designed so that the important information is not overlooked.