The effect of color coding and layout coding on users’ visual search on mobile map navigation icons

Color and spatial layout are important factors that affect users’ icon cognition and play a huge role in the visual search process of icons. Guided by the user’s interactive needs, this paper aims to improve the visual search efficiency of mobile map navigation icons. The mixed design within and between subjects is adopted through the combination of theoretical and experimental research, and the subjective questionnaire method is used to explore the research. This paper explores the visual search problem of mobile map navigation icons based on color coding and layout coding. The experimental results mainly include reaction time, accuracy rate, user experience, and statistical and variance analysis. The results show that the layout of the mobile map navigation icons significantly impacts the user’s visual search. The navigation icons that use color for layout coding have the highest visual search efficiency and better user experience. Among the icons, the layout with regular color distribution and a larger area of the same color has the highest visual search efficiency for users and the best user experience; the visual search efficiency of navigation icons using color for layout coding is significantly higher than that of mobile map navigation icons. Relevance to industry: The user scale of mobile information maps is huge and the usage rate is high, but the large number of navigation icons increases the burden of user information identification and acquisition. As a result, the efficiency of user information acquisition is low, and the user experience is reduced. A clear, easy-to-search navigation icon design can enhance the user experience of the entire product. The results of this research provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the design optimization and improvement of mobile map navigation icons.