The Impact of Color Combination on Visual Search Efficiency and User Experience in Human-Machine Interface: A Case Study of Metro Electronic Guide Screen

Junqing Guo, Fanghao Song, Yan Liu, Weihao Wang, Yong Wang

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · 2025 · 11 citations · 54 references

Concepts

Abstract

Color is an important attribute of human-perceived human-machine interface (HMI), and it is unclear which color combinations produce the best performance and user experience in visual search tasks. Taking the metro electronic guide screen (MEGS) as an example, the eye-tracking (E-T) device is used to record the pupil diameter and search time, and the Likert scale is used to evaluate the satisfaction and usability, and the influence of the four factors of background hue, saturation, brightness and text color in HMI on user search efficiency and user experience is discussed in depth. The results show that the recognition efficiency is best when the background hue is medium brightness, medium saturation green with white text color. Meanwhile, the results of user satisfaction and ease of use are basically consistent with the objective experimental results, and there is a certain correlation between the subjective preference of color combination and visual performance.

References

54