Aesthetics, Visual Appeal, Usability and User Satisfaction:
What Do the User’s Eyes Tell the User’s Brain?
Gitte Lindgaard
Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society
Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007, pp: 1-14
Summary: looks are more important than usability, but why?
Exploring the reasons why "people may be more satisfied with a beautiful product that performs suboptimally than with a more usable by less appealing product."
Showing posts with label Paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paper. Show all posts
Friday, June 8, 2012
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Paper: Visual Appeal vs. Usability: Which One Influences User Perceptions of a Website More?
Visual Appeal vs. Usability: Which One Influences User Perceptions of a Website More?
Christine Phillips and Barbara Chapparo
Usability News
Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University
Vol. 11, Issue 2, October 2009
Christine Phillips and Barbara Chapparo
Usability News
Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University
Vol. 11, Issue 2, October 2009
Friday, January 21, 2011
Paper: Aesthetics, Visual Appeal, Usability and User Satisfaction: What Do the User's Eyes Tell the User's Brain?
Aesthetics, Visual Appeal, Usability and User Satisfaction:
What Do the User’s Eyes Tell the User’s Brain?
Gitte Lindgaard
Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society
Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007, pp: 1-14
Summary: looks are more important than usability, but why?
Exploring the reasons why "people may be more satisfied with a beautiful product that performs suboptimally than with a more usable by less appealing product."
This paper really is almost a literature review unto itself. Mostly a grouping together of different studies into a cohesive narrative. No actual new research is discussed in this paper.
Compares seeing a website for the first time to meeting a person for the first time. Right from the start you have an instinctual like or dislike that has nothing to do with reason.
"Exposure effect" People prefer things that they've seen before, even if they don't recall seeing them - illustrated by Zajonc (1980). In web terms could mean people like things that they already know and understand, standards.
"Confirmation bias" Once a person has made up their mind, they tend to search for things that confirm that bias while rejecting things that disprove it. (Mynatt, Doherty, & Tweeney, 1977)
Lindgaard, 1999 illustrated the importance of color in determining "visual appeal, perceived usability, and user satisfaction in web sites. Color was cited as the main reason for disliking a web site and content was the reason stated for favoring a web site." White and blue were the most favored while yellow and black were the least. Pastels were also deemed favorable while most dark shadings were least.
Reading time: 25 minutes
------
I re-read this post on 6/8/2012 and the part about the most favored/least favored colors really caught me. Just this morning I had a choice of two gas stations. Whenever they have the same price on gas, I always favor one over the other and I was pondering why. At first I though "it looks friendlier" but that's very vague. Going further I thought about the colors and the one I favored was blue and white while the other, which I had deemed "ugly", was yellow and black. Just a surprise to see those exact colors listed in the exact favorable/unfavorable scenario in a totally different context.
What Do the User’s Eyes Tell the User’s Brain?
Gitte Lindgaard
Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society
Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007, pp: 1-14
Summary: looks are more important than usability, but why?
Exploring the reasons why "people may be more satisfied with a beautiful product that performs suboptimally than with a more usable by less appealing product."
This paper really is almost a literature review unto itself. Mostly a grouping together of different studies into a cohesive narrative. No actual new research is discussed in this paper.
Compares seeing a website for the first time to meeting a person for the first time. Right from the start you have an instinctual like or dislike that has nothing to do with reason.
"Exposure effect" People prefer things that they've seen before, even if they don't recall seeing them - illustrated by Zajonc (1980). In web terms could mean people like things that they already know and understand, standards.
"Confirmation bias" Once a person has made up their mind, they tend to search for things that confirm that bias while rejecting things that disprove it. (Mynatt, Doherty, & Tweeney, 1977)
Lindgaard, 1999 illustrated the importance of color in determining "visual appeal, perceived usability, and user satisfaction in web sites. Color was cited as the main reason for disliking a web site and content was the reason stated for favoring a web site." White and blue were the most favored while yellow and black were the least. Pastels were also deemed favorable while most dark shadings were least.
Reading time: 25 minutes
------
I re-read this post on 6/8/2012 and the part about the most favored/least favored colors really caught me. Just this morning I had a choice of two gas stations. Whenever they have the same price on gas, I always favor one over the other and I was pondering why. At first I though "it looks friendlier" but that's very vague. Going further I thought about the colors and the one I favored was blue and white while the other, which I had deemed "ugly", was yellow and black. Just a surprise to see those exact colors listed in the exact favorable/unfavorable scenario in a totally different context.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Paper: Attention Web Designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!
Attention Web Designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!
Behaviour & Information Technology, Vol. 25, No. 2, March-April 2006, 115 – 126
GITTE LINDGAARD, GARY FERNANDES, CATHY DUDEK and J. BROWN
Human-Oriented Technology Lab, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
3 studies to determine how fast people form an opinion about web page visual appeal and the reliability of those judgments.
Study 1: Participants rated the visual appeal of web pages presented in two phases for 500ms each. Purpose: "to determine the reliability of visual appeal ratings and select a subset of the pages to use in the second study."
Study 2: Same as first, but added a 3rd phase where participants viewed each page for as long as they liked while rating each web page on 7 visual design dimensions (bolded items had high correlation to visual appeal: simple-complex, interesting-boring, clear-confusing, well designed-poorly designed,good use of color-bad use of color, good layout-bad layout, imaginative-unimaginative). Purpose: To determine the reliability of visual appeal ratings of the subset of pages and to begin to explore visual characteristics that may be related to visual appeal."
Study 3: Same as first, but some saw the pages for only 50ms while other saw them for 500ms. Purpose: determine whether the first impression may be formed in an even shorter amount of time than 500ms.
Visual appeal ratings were highly correlated from on phase to the next as were the correlations between the 50ms and 500ms conditions and the 7 factor ratings.
"Halo Effect" or "Confirmation Bias": When users ignore evidence contradictory to their initial impression and pay attention only to evidence that confirms the impression.
Visual appeal factors may be detected first and these could influence how users judge subsequent experience and enjoyment of the site. (Jennings 2000, Tractinsky et al. 2000) (Lindgaard and Dudek 2002).
Even if a website is highly usable and useful and presented logically, if the first impression is not a good one, the user may not be willing to see the site positively. Therefor, it's crucial to make the first impression a good one regardless of usability or content.
TODO: Test eCAFE to see if increasing our "visual appeal" has an effect on our completion rates. Could try a different design for each campus and compare against historical numbers.
1/20/11 (12 pgs, 70m = 5.8 mpp) minutes per page
Behaviour & Information Technology, Vol. 25, No. 2, March-April 2006, 115 – 126
GITTE LINDGAARD, GARY FERNANDES, CATHY DUDEK and J. BROWN
Human-Oriented Technology Lab, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
3 studies to determine how fast people form an opinion about web page visual appeal and the reliability of those judgments.
Study 1: Participants rated the visual appeal of web pages presented in two phases for 500ms each. Purpose: "to determine the reliability of visual appeal ratings and select a subset of the pages to use in the second study."
Study 2: Same as first, but added a 3rd phase where participants viewed each page for as long as they liked while rating each web page on 7 visual design dimensions (bolded items had high correlation to visual appeal: simple-complex, interesting-boring, clear-confusing, well designed-poorly designed,good use of color-bad use of color, good layout-bad layout, imaginative-unimaginative). Purpose: To determine the reliability of visual appeal ratings of the subset of pages and to begin to explore visual characteristics that may be related to visual appeal."
Study 3: Same as first, but some saw the pages for only 50ms while other saw them for 500ms. Purpose: determine whether the first impression may be formed in an even shorter amount of time than 500ms.
Visual appeal ratings were highly correlated from on phase to the next as were the correlations between the 50ms and 500ms conditions and the 7 factor ratings.
"Halo Effect" or "Confirmation Bias": When users ignore evidence contradictory to their initial impression and pay attention only to evidence that confirms the impression.
Visual appeal factors may be detected first and these could influence how users judge subsequent experience and enjoyment of the site. (Jennings 2000, Tractinsky et al. 2000) (Lindgaard and Dudek 2002).
Even if a website is highly usable and useful and presented logically, if the first impression is not a good one, the user may not be willing to see the site positively. Therefor, it's crucial to make the first impression a good one regardless of usability or content.
TODO: Test eCAFE to see if increasing our "visual appeal" has an effect on our completion rates. Could try a different design for each campus and compare against historical numbers.
1/20/11 (12 pgs, 70m = 5.8 mpp) minutes per page
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