THE EFFECTS OF BOLD TEXT ON VISUAL SEARCH OF FORM FIELDS

摘要

This paper provides an analysis of a text-formatting issue that was revealed duringusability tests of an enterprise software prototype being developed by atelecommunications company. Usability test results indicated that search times forinformation were longer than expected when form fields displayed field identifiers ina non-bold format and field values in a bold format. This unexpected findingprompted further examination of the text formats used in the enterprise software.Four different text-formatting conditions were created and tested using 32participants. These conditions were as follows: 1) Non-Bold Field Identifier/Non-Bold Field Value, 2) Non-Bold Field Identifier/Bold Field Value, 3) Bold FieldIdentifier/Non-Bold Field Value, and 4) Bold Field Identifier/Bold Field Value.Participants performed a search task using an interface that approximated whatwas developed for the enterprise software. Measures of search time, accuracy andscan path indicated that performance was best for the Bold Field Identifier/Non-Bold Field Value condition. The results are discussed in terms of potential costsavings, and an additional study is proposed.