onds. Three of the subjects in the latter
group did not look at this area at all.
The first fixation times of the two
groups were compared for the task-relevant areas in the dashboard. The bar
chart labeled “Product Type By Market
Size” was chosen as a task-relevant area
because viewers needed to see this area
to complete the task. The results (see
Table 3) show viewers using the dashboard with no misuse of colors viewed
this area much more quickly than the
other group, indicating the contrasted
areas indeed distracted the viewers
who engaged in System 1 and System 2
processing, respectively.
The sample heat maps of two subjects (see Figure 4) reflect the analysis mentioned in Table 2 and Table 3.
The bottom-left heat map in Figure 4
shows areas with contrasting colors attracted viewer’s attention, whereas the
bottom-right heat map shows the focus
was on the task-relevant areas (such as
the chart title).
A fixation-sequence analysis was conducted to determine whether a viewer’s
decision-making process involving the
dashboard with misuse of colors was different from those viewing the dashboard
with no such misuse. To do it, the dash-
Figure 3. Heat maps of a subject performing a task with overuse vs. no overuse of colors in dashboards.
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Heat maps of two subjects performing tasks with dashboards.
(a) (b)
Table 2. Analysis of fixation durations and counts for dashboards with misuse of colors.
Group Fixation duration (ms) t-stat p-value Fixation count t-stat p-value
Dashboard with
misuse of colors
45176.69 2. 37 0.01* 159.43 1. 92 0.03*
Dashboard with no
misuse of colors
26800.00 102.57
* significant at 0.05 level; ms = millisecond
Table 3. Analysis of the first fixation times for dashboards that misuse colors; similar results
were obtained for the other task-non-relevant and -relevant areas between the two groups.
Group
First fixation time task
non-relevant area
(ms) t-stat p-value
First fixation
time-task-relevant
area (ms) t-stat p-value
Dashboard with
misuse of colors
6205.31 7. 50 0.00* 13065.63 6. 76 0.00*
Dashboard with no
misuse of colors
18127.09 7901.45
* significant at 0.05 level; ms = millisecond
Table 1. Analysis of fixation durations and counts for dashboards with overuse of colors.
Group Fixation duration (ms) t-stat p-value Fixation count t-stat p-value
Dashboard with
overuse of colors
28313.71 2. 12 0.02* 107.78 2. 47 0.01*
Dashboard with no
overuse of colors
22586.44 78. 25
* significant at 0.05 level; ms = millisecond