Peripheral Popout

By exploiting visual popout effects, interface designers can rapidly draw a user's attention to salient information objects in a display. A variety of different visual stimuli can be used to achieve popout effects, including color, shape, size, motion, luminance, and flashing. However, there is a lack of understanding about how accurately different intensities of these effects support popout, particularly as targets move further from the center of the visual field. We therefore conducted a study to examine the accuracy of popout target identification using different visual variables, each at five different levels of intensity, and at a wide range of angles from the display center. Results show that motion is a strong popout stimulus, even at low intensities and wide angles. Identification accuracy decreases rapidly across visual angle with other popout stimuli, particularly with shape and color. The findings have relevance to a wide variety of applications, particularly as multi-display desktop environments increase in size and visual extent.