NOTICEABILITY AND RECALL OF VISUAL ELEMENTS ON PACKAGING

Product packaging protects the content from the environment, but also serves to display information relevant to consumers. Some product information, like warning messages, should be both noticeable and memorable. The purpose of the study was to explore how people pay attention to visual elements on packaging and how well they recall them. The investigation was especially directed towards a particular visual element – a safety pictogram. The study consisted of two parts: an eye tracking experiment which measured the participants’ visual attention while viewing the packaging, and a followup memory test which assessed the ability of the participants to recall elements from the packaging. The packaging was designed especially for the purpose of the experiment. It was presented on-screen and viewed by 130 participants. The visual elements displayed on the packaging were: an illustration, a product name, a logo, a pictogram and the quantity information. Eye-tracking measures used were time to first fixation on each of the visual elements on the packaging and total fixation duration on an element. A list test was used for assessing the recall of visual information in the absence of the packaging. The illustration was the visual element recalled by most of the participants (reported by 80% of the participants), followed by the product name (reported by 59% of the participants). Only 18% of the participants mentioned that they saw the pictogram. The analysis of the eye movements and the visual attention showed that the most easily noticed visual element was the product name, while the illustration had the longest viewing period. Furthermore, the participants who detected the pictogram faster and viewed it longer also recalled it better. However, the association between visual attention and memory was not revealed for all visual elements on the packaging. The findings could be relevant for designers and those interested in the communication aspect of packaging.