Effects of mobile news interface design features on users’ gaze behaviours and behavioural performance: evidence from China

Abstract

The increasing growth in the use of mobile news apps has raised questions on how their interface design features affect users’ gaze behaviours and behavioural performance. To tackle these issues, two experiments (visual browse and search tasks) were designed to investigate the impact of interface design features (colour and layout) on users’ gaze behaviours (fixation count, fixation time ratio and first fixation duration) and behavioural performance (task completion time and search accuracy) with a portable eye tracker. Twenty-four participants were recruited to browse and search for news in different mobile news interfaces with Chinese language. The results showed that mobile news apps with white interfaces attracted more attention and participants needed more time to comprehend the information of white interfaces in the visual browse task. Furthermore, participants achieved higher search efficiency in the visual search task by using interfaces with red keyword and LT-RP (Left Text-Right Picture). In addition, it is noticeable that participants paid more attention to the text than the pictures of mobile news interfaces, and most participants first looked at text and later observed pictures. The findings provide valuable and interesting insights for better understanding users’ gaze behaviours and behavioural performance of mobile news apps.