Perceptual usability: Predicting changes in visual interfaces & designs due to visual acuity differences

When designing interfaces and visualizations how does a human or automatic visual interface designer know how easy or hard it will be for viewers to see the interface? In this paper we present a perceptual usability measure of how easy or hard visual designs are to see when viewed over different distances. The measure predicts the relative perceivability of sub-parts of a visual design by using simulations of human visual acuity coupled with an information theoretic measure. We present results of the perceptual measure predicting the perceivability of optometrists eye charts, a webpage and a small network graph.