  There is a presumption in human-computer interaction that laying out menus
and most other material in neat rows and columns helps users get work done. The
rule has been so implicit in the field of design as to allow for no debate.
However, the idea that perfect collinearity benefits creates an advantage for
both either search and or recall has rarely been tested. Drawing from separate
branches of cognitive literature, we tested a minimal brainstorming interface
with either aligned or eccentrically arranged layouts on 96 college students.
Incidental exact recall of recently worked locations improved in the eccentric
condition. And in both conditions there were frequent near-miss recall errors
to neighboring aligned objects and groups of objects. Further analysis found
only marginal performance advantages specifically for females with the
eccentric design. However, NASA-TLX subjective measures showed that in
eccentric, females reported higher performance, less effort, and yet also
higher frustration; while males reported lower performance with about the same
effort, and lower frustration.
