Factors influencing the usability of
icons in the LCD touch screens
Hsinfu Huang, Wang-Chin Tsai, Hsin-His Lai
Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University,
Taiwan, R.O.C.
Graduate School of Design, National Yunlin University of Science
and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Contents
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1 Introduction
2 Methods
3 Results
4. Discussion and conclusions
Introduction

With the development of touch panel technology, LCD touch
screens have different interactive type.

Compared to the type of gray screen in the past, current
colored screen (16.7 million) seems more complicated.
Operation of a touch screen was different from the normal
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screen.
Introduction

Past times-we execute tasks that control cursors to the goal
by normal display-control relation in the working
environment of VDT.
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Nowadays-With the development of touch panel technology,
more and more touch screens are used widely.
Icon design elements:
styling quality, message
quality, meaningfulness,
locatability, and metaphor
Application:
Icons
Lcd Touch
Screen
POS, kiosk, medical
environment and industrial
control using.
icons play an important role in the computer graphic user interface.
Introduction

Computer graphic user interface (GUI) brings the visual
operation to the user, and icons were often used on this
interface
icons
usability
Usability test
Factors
questionnaire
a good touch-icon design will improve the user’s performance, and
reduce its fault.
Introduction

Some of relevant studies determined anthropometry for
workstation of touch-screen and make workstation more
efficient.
-Optimal viewing angle for touch-screen: between 19 and 54.5 degree off the horizontal
[ Schultz et al. 1998]

There were few discussions on issues related to touching the
target and icons using fingers.
-A “touch” action involved in using a touch screen.
-Some important icon design elements, including styling quality, message quality,
meaningfulness, locatability, and metaphor [Huang et al., 2002].
-There was a principle not confirmed in the design of touch-screen icon.
Introduction

In order to create a high-user friendly interface, designers
must understand the usability requirements, which must
first be obtained from the users.

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors
affecting the usability of icons in the LCD touch screens.

The findings could serve as a guide to design computer
icons that were appropriate for touch screen interface, and
make interface more user-friendly.
Methods-Experimental Design
Subjects
-30 subjects participated in this experiment.
-10 none-experience users
10 click-experience users (PDA user)
10 touch-experience users (LCD touch screen user).
-mean age was 29.18
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Materials & Stimuli
- In the experimental interface, there were various design
icons with different feedback level and they were classified
along the axis.
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Methods-Experimental Design
The study makes usability of elements for touch-icons from relational journals.
20 items in Totally
Methods-Experimental Design
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Subjects can experience the difference between operating
the various touched icons.
Procedures
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Subjects experienced all different interaction style, and
perceived the different usability between operating the
various touched icons.

After the touch task finished, subjects were asked to rate
the usability elements based on the importance of touch
icon.

Finally, subjects had to fill in the questionnaire and rated
questions on 5-point Likert scales (1=not important at all;
5=most important).
Data analysis
There were effective cases into the data analysis process. The
following statistical methods were applied to data analysis:
Descriptive statistical analysis
Principal component analysis, and ANOVA.-

This study used the method of Principal Components Analysis to
extract the factors of influencing the usability of icons in the LCD
touch screens.
Data analysis- Principal Components Analysis
Factor 1
Touch field
Factor 5
Hit quality
Factor 2
Color quality
Factor 6
Shape quality
Factor 3
Tactility
Factor 4
Dynamics
Factor 7
Semantics
quality
Results
Factors of usability
 Factor 1:Touch field-icon spacing and size were influenced
factors to human visual search---corner
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Factor 2:Color quality-icons with apposite color were attractive
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Factor 3:Tactility-It produces faster and more accurate
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Factor 4:Dynamics-Dynamics is a guide of icon design among
to users and can display status changes. ---positive and negative
connotations
performance on the human-computer interface when haptic
(touch and force feedback) feedback was added
them
Results
Factors of usability
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Factor 5:Hit quality-icons were instable or insensitive, users will
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Factor 6:Shape quality-various shapes can draw attention to
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Factor 7:Semantics quality-Icons plus words were effective in
have setbacks.
touch for users.
computing situations
Results
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Importance of the usability of elements
-the averages that showed seven factors of usability from
high mark to low mark were: Touch field, Semantics quality,
Dynamics, Hit quality, Tactility, Color quality, Shape quality.
This result indicated that subjects favor icon types that
have practical function and high reliability.
Results
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The difference in subjects’ experience
Results
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The difference in subjects’ experience
Results
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The difference in subjects’ experience

The difference in subjects’ experience
Conclusion
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For Subjects, the elements that directly interact with finger
are main factors influencing the usability of icons, such as
sweet spot, size, location and displacement.
Subjects were not favor visual elements on the touch-icons,
such as shape and color, especially flash effect.
In this paper, the usability principles of touch-icon are
constructed from experimental results. The relational
results could serve as a guide to design touch-icons.
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Thank you for your attention