The Effect of Different Icon Shape and Width on Touch Behavior

Abstract

Among the constitute types and elements of press keys, different icon shape and width ratio may affect the user when they tap on the keypad. Thus, the experiment will use three geometric shapes as the experiment materials and three different width proportions to form 9 icons to extend the discussion of whether the shapes and width proportion affect the user’s touch point position. We look forward to the three research methods of quantitative data, data visualization and qualitative interviews that perfectly complement each other. Explore the impact of the icons on where users tap and help us understand which icon and proportion provide better tap accuracy and user-friendly usability. The study shows that tapping, regardless of its shape or width, affects the location of the tap, causing the touchpoint to shift. When people tap on a triangle icon, the beneficial result of the tap will be more effective than the other two shapes, and they can tap closer to the press key center; similarly, tapping on the narrow and medium-sized icons will make it more beneficial when people tap closer to the center of the key. Therefore, we hope that when developing application programs in the future, we can take into account the shape of the icon and its width proportion as a reference basis for the interface design, so as to help people achieve the best user operation and experience benefits when using mobile phones.