The XAOS metric: understanding visual complexity as measure of usability

Authors:
Christian Stickel;Martin Ebner;Andreas Holzinger
Affiliations:
Department of Social Learning, Graz University of Technology, Graz;Department of Social Learning, Graz University of Technology, Graz;Research Unit HCI4MED, Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz
Venue:
USAB'10 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on HCI in work and learning, life and leisure: workgroup human-computer interaction and usability engineering
Year:
2010

Citing 10
Cited 2

The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction

The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction
Layout Complexity: Does It Measure Usability?

INTERACT '97 Proceedings of the IFIP TC13 Interantional Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Homepage aesthetics: The search for preference factors and the challenges of subjectivity

Interacting with Computers
The Effect of Aesthetic on the Usability of Data Visualization

IV '07 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference Information Visualization
Engaging viewers through nonphotorealistic visualizations

Proceedings of the 5th international symposium on Non-photorealistic animation and rendering
Informational Aesthetics Measures

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Learning performance with interactive simulations in medical education: Lessons learned from results of learning complex physiological models with the HAEMOdynamics SIMulator

Computers & Education
Toward a definition of visual complexity as an implicit measure of cognitive load

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP)
Cognitive load in ecommerce applications: measurement and effects on user satisfaction

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
Visual complexity of websites: Effects on users' experience, physiology, performance, and memory

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Measuring the Visual Complexities of Web Pages

ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB)
An investigation on Ribbon interface design guidelines for people with less computer literacy

Computer Standards & Interfaces

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The visual complexity of an interface is a crucial factor for usability, since it influences the cognitive load and forms expectations about the subjacent software or system. In this paper we propose a novel method that uses entropy, structure and functions, to calculate the visual complexity of a website. Our method is evaluated against a well known approach of using the file size of color jpeg images for determining visual complexity. Both methods were applied on a dataset consisting of images of 30 different websites. These websites were also evaluated with a web survey. We found a strong correlation for both methods on subjective ratings of visual complexity and structure. This suggests both methods to be reliable for determination of visual complexity.