Heaviness–Location Congruency Improves Search Efficiency in Digital Menu Interfaces

This research examines whether heaviness-location congruency, a sensory correspondence between heaviness and spatial position, improves search performance and usability in digital café menus. Two experiments tested this principle using a simplified two-item selection task and a grid-based menu interface. Experiment 2 assessed effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction and included exploratory eye-tracking analyses. The clearest effect emerged in Experiment 2: congruent layouts enabled faster known-target searches than incongruent and realistic control layouts. Accuracy, subjective time, and satisfaction did not differ significantly between the three interface groups. Composite usability scores (SUM) also showed a significant overall group effect, primarily reflecting the efficiency-related measures of reaction time and subjective time. Exploratory eye-tracking results were broadly consistent with the behavioral findings, with the clearest group difference in the on-target fixation ratio. These findings suggest that heaviness-location congruency may facilitate known-target search efficiency in digital menu interfaces, although benefits for other usability dimensions were not established.