Factors influencing the usability of icons in the LCD touchscreen

Touchscreens are widely used in electronic products. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors influencing the usability of icons in the LCD touchscreens. In this study, subjects had to answer a questionnaire and rate questions on a five-point Likert scale. Twenty evaluation items were collected from relevant interface design guidelines. Thirty subjects participated in this test, including 10 non-experienced users, 10 click-experienced users (PDA users), and 10 touch-experienced users (LCD touchscreen users). Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed with SPSS/ PC as the main statistical test. The PCA results showed that the usability of touch icons was affected by seven factors: touch field, semantics quality, dynamics, hit quality, tactility, color quality, and shape quality. Among these, touch field was rated as being the most important. Finally, the results of correlation analyses indicated that the user experience affected the importance ratings for usability. In particular, the subjects' ratings exhibited significant differences with regard to the size element (p < 0.05). Further, click-experienced users such as PDA users continued to rate a better performance for touchscreens even if smaller icons were used. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.