Perceptual Guidance

An instructional technique that directs a user’s attention to specific perceptual features of a target — most commonly color and on-screen location — to help them detect or disambiguate it. In accessibility contexts, perceptual guidance is used in screen-reader cues, tutorial overlays, and digital-literacy materials for older adults, for example rewriting "Click the MY icon" as "Click the black icon at the top right of the screen, labeled MY." Evidence suggests perceptual guidance benefits users with lower confidence or proficiency more than experts, for whom extra descriptive text can slow response time.