The visual system's resolution distribution affects page access behavior

What is the difference between our visual system's key indicator for measuring imaging performance-resolution-and our common or commonly understood exposure devices? How are these differences affecting our webpage access behavior?

 

The resolution of the visual system decreases sharply from the center to the edge.

If we analyze the original image of spatial resolution imaging in the human visual system, we will notice that the spatial resolution of our field of vision is rapidly decreasing from the center to the edge. This is due to two reasons:

1. cone cells are distributed in the center of the retina. Remember the cone cell? In modern society, because of the wide use of artificial light sources, the role of pole cells is greatly weakened. Almost all the visual information we obtain from the outside is derived from the cone cells. Each side of our eyes contains a large number of cone cells (about 6 million to 7 million), but they are far from the average, more than 1% of the cone cells are concentrated in the middle of the area that accounts for only 50% of the total retina area. This will inevitably lead to insufficient distribution of the other 99% of retina cone cells, resulting in a decrease in the number of sensitive information collected, and eventually lead to resolution differences.

2. The visual processing cells are also centrally connected to the cone cells in the middle of the retina. No, the connection between cone cells and the focal point for processing visual information is almost one-to-one. In other regions of the retina, it is often a combination of multiple photosensitive cells, such as a group of multiple cone cells and rod cells, in order to share a neuron. If we use computer terms to describe this phenomenon, that is, the data collected by the photosensitive cells in the edge area has undergone lossy compression before being transferred to the brain for further processing-apparently some of the information collected by the photosensitive cells has been discarded, the information collected by the photosensitive cells in the middle is almost not compressed.
The above two points lead to a higher resolution for the content in the center of our vision, while the content at the edge is very low. However, if our edge visual resolution is very low, why isn't the world a tunnel feeling that only the center is clear and the surroundings are defocal?

Through our constant eye movement and brain correction, we will eventually feel that the final resolution is not much different.

In real life, apart from clear central images, the images we receive about the surrounding areas are also basically clear. We can have this final imaging experience because the eyes keep moving quickly at a very high frequency, and selectively focus on the surrounding environmental objects. At last, the brain fills other parts of the vision in a relatively crude way based on our experience and expectations.

For example, when reading this line of text, our eyes move around. When we look at a picture, our eyes go online for inspection. No matter at which point our eyes are focused on, we feel that we are reading a whole line of text, or reading a picture. In other words, we only focus on the clear aspect of imaging and turn a blind eye to the surrounding environment. A highly relevant fact is that, in our visual system, only the central part of intuition can recognize words, that is, reading, while the rest of the field of vision cannot be used for reading. Reading is basically a result of training the day after tomorrow, which means that only a neural system connected to the central part of the vision can be trained as an effective reading system, however, the neural system that connects only the retina edge cone cells may not be able to complete reading. Due to the small size of the central area and the high concentration of the Reading Comprehension nerves, this causes a common burden during reading: eye movement.

Why is there a low-resolution visual edge?

From the above description, the high-resolution Central Imaging System seems to be much better at all aspects than the low-resolution edge imaging. Why do we need edge imaging? Why have we not eliminated these out-of-date visual aspects in the evolution of 3.5 million years?

Low-resolution visual edges are mainly used to quickly provide visual clues to the center to influence and guide eye movements. Processing high-resolution images with a large amount of data requires additional response time even for my brain, which is very dangerous for our ancestors who just came down from the tree: that is, it is impossible to detect food in time and effectively provide warnings to avoid risks. Therefore, we need a low-resolution profile image that is fast enough to guide the orientation of the high-resolution visual center, which avoids excessive information and does not omit important information.

 

Application in page access behavior

 

Further considering the special nature of our webpage access behavior, the resolution at the visual edge explains why we often have trouble to notice some misrepresentations and successful prompts.

A typical scenario is to face the computer in our normal sitting posture and click a button or link on the website. In this case, the visitor's visual center is usually concentrated in the place you just clicked, at the same time, the coverage of the central part of the high-resolution vision basically does not exceed the radius of the click position 2 ~ 3 cm, the rest of the image is within the low-resolution visual edge range. If the position of the next or error prompt after clicking is more than 3 cm away from the focus position, we may not be aware of it.

This reminds us to be familiar with several common problems during design and website page layout at night:

1. Important information is stored in the central visual area. The user's visual center is usually concentrated in the interaction part. If any important information needs to be fed back to the customer in a timely manner, it should be within a very close range of interaction, rather than a unified one, but it is far away from the center of the user's vision.

2. Follow the Convention to display the error message in red. In terms of habits, not only in interactive systems, but also in real life, red is often a clear warning, danger, and error prompt. The use of red to identify other information is often too easy to cause misunderstanding.

3. Use additional features to attract the visual attention of visitors. Sometimes, even if we place the error information close enough, it may still be ignored by visitors. If this information is very important, therefore, we need to consider the following suggestions to attract users' visual attention again:

A. Pop-up box: it is very difficult to ignore the prompt information in the form of a dialog box, but it is clear that the pop-up dialog box will seriously interrupt the visitor's access process. Although the pop-up dialog box shows a big difference, it makes visitors dislike a different degree: basically, it gradually increases with the increase of its exclusive permissions, system-level prompts that cannot be bypassed at all will drive people crazy.

B. Use VOICE: when an agreement (such as a QQ prompt) or an unexpected sound is made, the user realizes that something is wrong, then the user starts to scan the current environment, that is, the screen, all the content, and find out the reason for the sound-this is a good opportunity for the user to pay attention to the information we want him not to ignore. However, a major problem with sound reminders is that many people in the Collaboration area may be disturbed, and the sound reliability is lower than that in the pop-up box.

C. flashing or flashing

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