Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Results summary.
The most popular background colors were white (25%), lime (20%), and silver (15%).
The most popular foreground colors were black (25%), and blue (25%). The most
popular combinations were silver on black (10%) standing for simplicity and concen-
tration, blue on lime (10%) standing for relaxation and warmth, and black on white
(10%) standing for clarity and naturalness.
Czech
Results summary.
The most popular background colors were white (45%) and silver (15%), while the
most popular foreground colors were black (20%), red, and silver (each with 15%).
The most popular combinations were blue/navy on white (15%), which are relaxing,
harmonic, and allow for other colors to be added. Red on white (clean and warm) and
black on white (simple, contrasting) followed (each with 10%).
Discussion/conclusion.
The hypothesis was not supported by the results. This might be due to a different
method employed, as we did not show the respondents sets of different color com-
binations (as in the research the hypothesis is drawing from), but let them combine
the colors by themselves. The background color preference was shared among the
groups, except for lime, which was chosen by the Chinese. For the foreground, blue
was a favorite for the Chinese, while red and silver for the Czechs. From the shared
color combinations, black on white stood for clarity and naturalness for the Chinese,
while for the Czechs it indicated contrast and simplicity.
8.1.4
S
YMBOLS
For testing symbols we used various examples of computer icons found in different
applications or we created the examples. The supported hypotheses regarding user's
preferences for different types of media and preferences for culture-specific content
and trustworthiness of the content were:
•
Icons presenting situations are more intuitive than those containing objects.
The Czech sample preferred image icons to those presenting situations, in
contrast with the Chinese results.
•
There is a close similarity between sequential information structure in lan-
guage and the horizontal structure in visual composition. Verb (a pointer
index) and adverb (a “+” sign) would mimic their position in sentence (i.e.,
the verb comes before the adverb).
•
Users can recognize visual patterns occurring in the UI.
•
Copied UI elements are better perceived than original elements. This applies
both on computer icons and design patterns.
•
The sequence of input in a faceted search follows the sequence of natural
language. The subject comes first (relating to the user's gender, or size), fol-
lowed by an implied verb and adverb (purpose) and finally the object (price,
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