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Individualising Graphical Layouts with Predictive Visual Search Models

Published: 30 August 2019 Publication History

Abstract

In domains where users are exposed to large variations in visuo-spatial features among designs, they often spend excess time searching for common elements (features) on an interface. This article contributes individualised predictive models of visual search, and a computational approach to restructure graphical layouts for an individual user such that features on a new, unvisited interface can be found quicker. It explores four technical principles inspired by the human visual system (HVS) to predict expected positions of features and create individualised layout templates: (I) the interface with highest frequency is chosen as the template; (II) the interface with highest predicted recall probability (serial position curve) is chosen as the template; (III) the most probable locations for features across interfaces are chosen (visual statistical learning) to generate the template; (IV) based on a generative cognitive model, the most likely visual search locations for features are chosen (visual sampling modelling) to generate the template. Given a history of previously seen interfaces, we restructure the spatial layout of a new (unseen) interface with the goal of making its features more easily findable. The four HVS principles are implemented in Familiariser, a web browser that automatically restructures webpage layouts based on the visual history of the user. Evaluation of Familiariser (using visual statistical learning) with users provides first evidence that our approach reduces visual search time by over 10%, and number of eye-gaze fixations by over 20%, during web browsing tasks.

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cover image ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems
ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems  Volume 10, Issue 1
Special Issue on IUI 2018
March 2020
347 pages
ISSN:2160-6455
EISSN:2160-6463
DOI:10.1145/3352585
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 30 August 2019
Accepted: 01 December 2018
Revised: 01 December 2018
Received: 01 May 2018
Published in TIIS Volume 10, Issue 1

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Author Tags

  1. Visual search
  2. adaptive user interfaces
  3. computational design
  4. graphical layouts

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  • Academy of Finland project COMPUTED
  • European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme

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