The Principles of Attention Stress is a user interface design theory to measure the amount of attention that is required to perform certain tasks in a web application. It is developed by Antradar Software in an attempt to benchmark the easy of use of open source CMS products and to monitor the trend of UI designs.
The Attention Stress theory is based on many psychological observations, of which the two most important ones are:
- attention shift
- selection threshold
Attention Shift addresses the issue of "getting lost", or the experience of a "broken flow". It is usually measured by the number of page refreshes or the amount of hand–eye coordination required to complete a task. According to attention shift, new pages cause more stress than pop-ups, and pop-ups are more "expensive" than things like inline-editing.
Selection threshold deals with the matter of "being overwhelmed". It is observed that when the users are presented more than 4 choices at a time, their decisions tend to base on random guess instead of reasoning. This is especially true with users who suffer minor dyslexic symptoms. A well-known solution to this problem is the "personal menu" in Microsoft Office products where rarely used menu items are hidden from the users.
Although the emergence of AJAX provides many ways to reduce Attention Shift, the paradox between Attention Shift and Selection Threshold still cannot be resolved. Because of the nature of some application logic, the overall Attention Stress bears a lower bound. This limit is termed "UI Capacity" in the Principles of Attention Stress.
Read more about Principles Of Attention Stress: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words principles of, principles, attention and/or stress:
“Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“...at this stage in the advancement of women the best policy for them is not to talk much about the abstract principles of women’s rights but to do good work in any job they get, better work if possible than their male colleagues.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)
“How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“In the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that most comfortable vanity that whispers in our ears that failures are not faults! Now we are taught from infancy that we must rise or fall upon our own merits; that vigilance wins success, and incapacity means ruin.”
—Agnes Repplier (1858–1950)