Visuals Visuals Visuals

At a winery in Ensenada Mexico over a weekend getaway, I picked up a travel magazine over the counter and began reading. I flipped the pages for about five minutes, until my girlfriend who’s travelling with me reminded to go.

She asked me out of curiosity what this magazine was about and I looked at it one more time, and realized, oh wow, I wasn’t really “reading” the magazine, because it’s all in Spanish, the language I know nothing about (except a couple of words and broken sentences). So what I was reading, are solely those pretty pictures of wine, food, and scenery.

That’s funny.

But given it a second thought, it makes absolute sense. We are (well, at least I am) trained as fast food readers; we scan the information as opposed to perusing it. A cliche coming out of our usability testing later last year was “people don’t read.”

A study I read some years ago back in grad school showed that there was a significant statistical difference on human comprehension among the control group plain text; experiment group A icons only; and experiment group B text aided with icons.  And the winner, went to experiment group B.

It’s becoming more and more true if you look at some user interfaces on iPhone, or the Web.

I was constantly asked why do we need icons here and there, not that I am a big fan of icons, they do help:) And, keep in mind that, the visuals about food and human faces you put on your website or apps may draw better attention than others: 100 things you should know about people #11: Why you cannot resist paying attention to food, sex, and danger.