| Abstract: | Screen/report design for output organization is still very much a common sense-driven activity. This paper identifies a preliminary set of factors beyond display format for examination as screen/report design variables. A laboratory experiment was conducted to assess the influence of one of these factors, spatial layout of information, along with display format in an information recall context. Individual imagery orientation (verbalizer/visualizer) was used as a moderating variable in the experimental design. The findings indicate that spatial layout of information significantly influenced performance when the recall task involved pattern detection. In fact, a central location of data in a document was the most conducive to pattern recall performance. Further, terminal items facilitated pattern recall better than early input items. With respect to display format, the results support previous findings that a tabular display enhances performance for point-value recall tasks while graphs exhibit an edge over tables for pattern types of recall tasks. Overall, the verbalizers demonstrated a complete supremacy in performance. Interaction between individual imagery orientation and display format indicates that, while the verbalizers and the mixed type were immune to display format variations, the graphical stimulus enhanced the pattern recall performance of the visualizers. |
