  In this paper, results of experimental research on the preattentive mechanism
in the human-computer interaction (HCI) were presented. Fifty four subjects
were asked to find interface elements from various panel structures. The
arrangements were differentiated by their orientation (vertical, horizontal),
colour pattern (ordered, unordered) and object background colours (green-blue,
green-red, blue-red). The main finding of the study generally confirms the
profits provided by the visual preattentive processing of the colour feature in
graphical panel operation efficiency. However, the vertical way of arranging
the items in search layouts resulted in decreasing the preattentive effect
related to the item background colour. In regular, chessboard-like patterns of
different coloured items, the effect of the early vision was less salient than
in the case of structures with randomly dispersed colours. The reported results
can help in designing efficient graphical user-computer interfaces in many
interactive information systems.
