<p>Human interaction with digital devices usually depends on the screen’s visual elements, which draw attention and guide the user to the region of interest. Visual elements of the screen, known as user interface elements, consist of various interactive icons and buttons usually designed as symbols with or without background shape. Several shapes are commonly used as a background for test stimuli: square, rounded square, and circle. This paper investigates the effects of shape and colour combinations on visual search performance. Three different shapes were used in the experiment (circle, square, and rounded square). Their combinations were used to create stimuli - one shape as a foreground element and another shape as a background element. The effect of colour combinations and shape/colour interaction are also investigated. Results of the experiment show that both shape and colour combinations significantly affect visual search performance. Results show that the square background shape is found to be significantly faster than the rounded square shape background. Furthermore, the results obtained show that a square background provided the shortest search time, and a circle background provided the second search time. In contrast, the slowest search time is achieved with a rounded rectangle shape. Further analysis shows that the shortest search time, considering all shapes from the experiment, is accomplished by combining two identical shapes for the foreground and background shapes.</p>