Strategy and Processing Mode of Visual Search Under Information Overload on Web Pages:an Eye-tracking Study

Previous studies have demonstrated that visual search on Web pages is impacted by many factors,such as information form and Webpage layout.However,quantitative research about the impact of information overload for visual search on Web pages has not been reported yet.This study quantitatively investigates users' visual search behavior under information overload on Web pages using eye-tracking.Resultssuggest that 1) under information overload or not,users' visual search strategies are the same that is paying more attention to pictures and peripheral areas;2) Information overload significantly increases the visual search time,which means the decrease of visual search efficiency;and 3) Under information overload,users are more likely to decrease parallel processing and increase serial processing to improve the visual search efficiency.