The Design Method of Alarm Information Manifestation Based on Visual Attention

The alarm is a core function of security monitoring information systems. With the characteristics of high information density, strong timeliness, and visual environment interference, the effectiveness of alarm information design is a significant key affecting system performance. The purpose of this paper is to study the design method of alarm information to improve the capture efficiency of users’ visual attention in complex information interfaces. By sorting out related design standards and research literature, this paper identifies 7 current alarm information coding methods. The four most used visual coding methods are chosen for combination. By selecting any two or three of the four coding methods for combination, 10 combinations are finally obtained, and 10 visual solutions are designed for experimental comparison. The experiment took the mine safety monitoring system interface as the carrier and tested 10 visual solutions as stimuli. By recording the subject’s time to first fixation to the stimulus, we compared the differences in the efficiency of guiding user’s attention under different coding combinations, then sought a better coding method for alarm information. Experimental results demonstrate that different coding combinations have impacts on the efficiency of visual attention. Compared with other solutions, the solution with the combination of three coding methods of color, flashing, and shape(size) is more efficient and takes less time to notice the alarm information. Whilst the attention level is less affected by the number of coding methods and is more affected by the types of coding methods included in the solution. For example, when the coding method includes color or flashing coding, the subjects noticed the alarm information faster and more efficiently, and no experimental failure cases occurred during the experiment when using color and flash coding at the same time. The conclusion effectively provides a solution for the design of alarm information in monitoring systems.Keywords: Alarm Information, Visual Attention, Eye Movement Measurement, Multi-dimensional Coding