Masters Thesis - Issues of Saliency and Recognition in the Search for Web Page Bookmarks

8. Conclusion

The number of cues on display in a bookmark was a significant factor in recognition, where two cues were found to be necessary for optimal recognition in a visual search of the bookmark menu. However, top-down and bottom-up bookmark structures were found to be equally salient. This is good news for web producers, as there is essentially no trade-off between bookmark recognition and the navigational scheme that they may choose to portray on the web browser's top bar.

Although there was no significant difference between bookmark formats, eye movements did indicate that recognition of the site name is highly context sensitive. It may be likely that in larger scale systems, this factor could be amplified and have an appreciable effect on information recognition. Web producers would do well to assess the salience of their data structures using the techniques described in this report.