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.

翻译：人机交互领域存在一个预设：将菜单及大多数其他材料整齐排列成行和列，有助于用户完成工作。这一规则在设计领域如此不言自明，以至于不容置疑。然而，完美共线性带来的优势是否同时有利于搜索和回忆，却鲜有检验。借鉴不同认知心理学分支的文献，我们在一项极简头脑风暴界面中，对96名大学生测试了对齐布局与偏心布局的效果。结果显示，在偏心条件下，对近期工作位置的意外精确回忆有所提升。而在两种条件下，均频繁出现邻近对齐对象及对象组件的“接近失误”回忆错误。进一步分析发现，仅女性受试者在偏心设计中表现出边际性表现优势。然而，NASA-TLX主观测量显示，在偏心条件下，女性报告了更高的表现、更低的努力，但同时也报告了更高的挫败感；而男性报告了较低的表现及相近的努力水平，同时挫败感较低。