Investigation the role of contrast on habituation and sensitisation effects in peripheral areas of graphical user interfaces

Graphical user interfaces are designed so that the most important elements are usually located in the central part of the screen, where they catch the user’s attention. However, there are situations where it is necessary to attract the user’s attention to make him/her notice, e.g., a critical alert, which is customarily displayed in the peripheral area so as not to interact with the main content. Therefore, our focus is to deliver an increased visibility of content in the peripheral area of the display in a non-intrusive way. Thus, the main purpose of this work is to analyze the visibility of the stimulus (in the form of colored discs), displayed in the peripheral area of a screen, which distracts users from the central part of the interface. The habituation and sensitization effects were considered to study which parameters catch and hold the user’s attention, despite the length of their interaction with the system. The experiments performed indicated how the parameters should be set to reduce the habituation effect without the need to use content with the highest visual intensity. The results showed that a high visual intensity is not necessarily needed for the best impact. A medium contrast level, a horizontal or vertical display localization, and a flashing frequency of 2 Hz are sufficient to obtain the best visibility in the peripheral area. In the case of critical alerts and the need for short-term intensive stimuli, it is worth highlighting these with high contrast. This configuration should be the most effective if it is not a continuous operation. However, they can cause unnecessary irritation or even cognitive load for more extended usage.