Abstract

The concept of on-screen affordance suggests that the visual properties of digital objects can affect how users perceive their function and operation. This study aimed to investigate the on-screen affordance of virtual buttons on smartphones and examine whether the visual properties of virtual buttons, such as symbol position, would affect users' entry performance on smartphones. To this end, the study has designed a shifting symbol that suggests where to tap on virtual buttons, thereby helping users tap the button center. This study adopted a two-way within-subject design: 2 (symbol position: static mode vs. dynamic mode) × 26 (key position: 26 alphabetic keys). The dependent variables were four indices for entry accuracy and speed. In the serial tapping task, 30 university students tapped on the soft keyboard using their right thumb. The result revealed that adjusting the symbol position on virtual buttons could alter participants’ tapping direction without understanding the shifting symbol's operation. This study also proved that the shifting symbol could reduce input offsets without consuming more time. These findings demonstrated that symbol positions on virtual buttons could afford the possible clicking action and tapping direction for users regarding the affordance of virtual buttons.

Keywords

touchscreen; mobile device; graphical user interface; visual cue

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Oct 9th, 9:00 AM

Examining the affordance effect of shifting symbols on the virtual buttons of smartphones

The concept of on-screen affordance suggests that the visual properties of digital objects can affect how users perceive their function and operation. This study aimed to investigate the on-screen affordance of virtual buttons on smartphones and examine whether the visual properties of virtual buttons, such as symbol position, would affect users' entry performance on smartphones. To this end, the study has designed a shifting symbol that suggests where to tap on virtual buttons, thereby helping users tap the button center. This study adopted a two-way within-subject design: 2 (symbol position: static mode vs. dynamic mode) × 26 (key position: 26 alphabetic keys). The dependent variables were four indices for entry accuracy and speed. In the serial tapping task, 30 university students tapped on the soft keyboard using their right thumb. The result revealed that adjusting the symbol position on virtual buttons could alter participants’ tapping direction without understanding the shifting symbol's operation. This study also proved that the shifting symbol could reduce input offsets without consuming more time. These findings demonstrated that symbol positions on virtual buttons could afford the possible clicking action and tapping direction for users regarding the affordance of virtual buttons.

 

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