Phosphor: Explaining Transitions in the User Interface Using Afterglow Effects
Proposes phosphor objects that display a change's outcome immediately while leaving an afterglow that explains it.
Citation
Baudisch, P., Tan, D., Collomb, M., Robbins, D., Hinckley, K., Agrawala, M., Zhao, S., & Ramos, G. (2006). Phosphor: Explaining Transitions in the User Interface Using Afterglow Effects. Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '06), 169–178.
Method
Transition-design framework and two user studies.
Claims used
- Users sometimes fail to notice recent changes on screen.
- Animated transitions help but force users to wait for completion, even when they do not need an explanation.
- Showing the result immediately and providing an explanation afterward helps users who understand the change and those who need to observe it.
- Two user studies found significant performance advantages for phosphor objects.
Extracted principles
- Interruptible motionSupported
Rapidly successive state changes must remain interruptible: motion should reverse from its current position instead of jumping or ignoring input.
Frequently repeated actions, especially keyboard-driven ones, should avoid animation; save motion for infrequent, meaningful changes.
- Signal changes where they occurNot tested
Changes that users could overlook should be signaled where they happen; without a local cue, changes may go unnoticed.
MotionMicrointeractions