Antecedents of visual aesthetics

What makes an interactive system look more or less aesthetic? What makes one system look aesthetic in a particular way and another system look aesthetic in a different way? These are questions of the utmost practical importance. If we could only decipher the aesthetic code! Fortunately, the quest for the Holy Grail of visual aesthetics is beyond our reach for at least the foreseeable future, so there is plenty of room for experimentation, new approaches and ample research. In studying this category, we naturally look first at design guidelines and insights. However, the very broad scope of design possibilities, the creative nature of design work, and the almost unbounded relationships between design elements make it extremely difficult to isolate specific design aspects which may be considered aesthetic or which may influence aesthetic perceptions one way or another. It is probably possible to categorize aesthetic design guidelines from the very broad and abstract (e.g., “form follows function”) to the very specific (e.g., “use colours with different hues between background and menu bar” (Kim et al., 2003), with mid-range guidelines in between (e.g., “visual layout should be symmetrical” (Sutcliffe, 2002). They can be expressed in terms of object properties or in terms of motivational and emotional mediators (e.g., Berlyne’s (Berlyne 1971) collative variables).

At the beginning of this section, we posed two different questions. The first question -- what makes a system look more or less aesthetic -- has probably been more central to aesthetic and design research over the years. Park et al. (2005) have collected and listed 11 visual attributes that can potentially answer this question. Other, more high-level responses to this question include contrasting attributes such as novelty and typicality (Veryzer & Hutchinson, 1998; Hekkert et al., 2010) and the related idea of processing fluency (Reber et al., 2004). Hekkert et al.’s results suggest that a balanced dose of typicality and novelty increase aesthetic evaluations (see also Kumara & Gargb, 2010,Tractinsky et al., 2011a). Similarly, van Schaik & Ling (2011) suggest that design qualities, which they term pragmatic and hedonic, affect perceptions of overall beauty.

Some researchers argue for the prospect of identifying formal, objective, attributes that determine aesthetic judgment, and which will ultimately lead to automatic composition or checks of displays such as web pages (e.g., Ngo et al., 2003).� This approach has been criticized on the grounds that aesthetic laws engrained in the object are “universalist” (Krippendorff, 2005) would not survive individual, cultural and context differences (Martindale et al., 1990; Krippendorff, 2005). Similarly, Csikszentmihalyi (1991) argues that formal aspects only rarely make objects valuable to their owners. He speculates that people do not perceive formal attributes such as order or disorder in design according to mathematical principles. Still, despite the apparent subjective and context-dependent nature of aesthetic processes, studies have continued the quest for basic and formal principles of aesthetic properties of interactive systems. Such principles can be expressed as computational models aimed at achieving optimal design spaces. For example, Bauerly & Liu (2006) suggest that in basic images, symmetry and balance affect aesthetic appeal ratings. However, they also found that the strong relationship found between symmetry and aesthetic appeal diminished when tested with more realistic (i.e., context-dependent) web pages. Other approaches to predicting aesthetic evaluations have been proposed in the context of photographs. For example, the Aquine project (Datta et al., 2006, Datta et al., 2008) proposes to combine various algorithmic approaches to classifying photographs according to various visual properties.

However, as mentioned above, the problem of finding universal visual aesthetic guidelines and laws is further exacerbated in the field of HCI because of the variety of applications and products and the uniqueness of so many use contexts. In addition, the dynamic nature of contemporary society and fashion-like approach to the design of many interactive devices and applications make aesthetics a moving and often unpredictable target (Korman-Golander, 2011).

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Figure 19.10: Website design fashion changes continuously. The popularity of the “Web 2.0” design trend peaked around 2007 and has been on the decline since then (Korman-Golander, 2011).

Copyright © Gili Korman Golander. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below. Download or viewfull resolution (960 x 646 pixels. 131 KB)

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Figure 19.11: The “One-Page Layout” website design trend became popular in 2008 (Korman-Golander, 2011).

Copyright © Gili Korman Golander. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below. Download or viewfull resolution (960 x 628 pixels. 79 KB)

These constraints lead us to the second question. Here, researchers have tried to break down the aesthetic stimuli to sub-dimensions which may be more or less suitable for various contexts or to individual tastes. Such dimensions often emerged out of subjective evaluations of aesthetic stimuli. �For example, Park et al. (2004) identified thirteen aesthetic dimensions of web pages. A more parsimonious approach to dimensionality was taken by Lavie & Tractinsky (2004), who identified two perceived dimensions of visual aesthetic, “classical” and “expressive,” in the context of website design. Classical aesthetics corresponds to traditional views of aesthetic � symmetrical, clean and organized design. The expressive dimension relates to the designer’s creativity and originality. One of the important aspects of that study was the demonstration that these aesthetic dimensions are correlated as expected with various interaction outcomes such as perceived usability, pleasing interaction and perception of service quality. Similarly,Moshagen & Thielsch (2010) have suggested four aesthetic dimensions: Simplicity, diversity, colorfulness and craftsmanship. The first two dimensions were highly correlated with Lavie and Tractinsky’s classical and expressive aesthetics, respectively. All four dimensions were associated with appeal. Commensurate with Lavie and Tractinsky’s results, all dimensions were positively, but differentially correlated with various outcome measures.

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