Webpage Validation by Visualizing Importance Area

Abstract

Web designers should develop webpages that are easy to navigate and engage users. However, an aesthetic design does not guarantee usability. Users tend to avoid webpages with low usability, resulting in poor service and sales. One cause of inadequate usability is the difference between the intended content and what the users see on the webpage. On the other hand, visual saliency is the ease with which the human eye notices something. Visual saliency maps (VSMs) are used to recognize areas in an image where people pay attention. VSMs often represent the visual features of landscapes and human faces. Here, we propose a method to generate a webpage-specific VSM based on the layout. Our method computes and visualizes the visual salience level for each webpage element, allowing web designers to easily recognize webpage elements with a high visual prominence. An evaluation revealed that the quality of VSMs generated by our method is higher than those generated by existing methods. Moreover, the VSMs generated by our method are easier to recognize than those of existing methods.