Future Research

This chapter has reaffirmed that visual aesthetics is associated with a range of HCI-related variables. However, it is also apparent that our understanding of the contingent nature of the processes that surround visual aesthetics is still limited. Thus, further exploring these contingencies (i.e., the conditions under which perceptions of visual aesthetics or its effects change due to contextual factors) appears to be more beneficial to the advancement of knowledge in the field than attempting to confirm direct relationships along the visual aesthetics process chain.

Most studies to date have concentrated on people’s first reactions to visual aesthetics or to short term impact of aesthetic design. Studies are also characterized by providing participants a limited set of aesthetic stimuli to choose from. The problem with such sets is that they do not necessarily include designs that are viewed by the participants as beautiful. In addition, such studies rarely represent reflective aesthetic value to individual participants. Such stimuli may be adequate for creating short term impressions, but they are hardly adequate for assessing contemplative evaluations and longer term evolvement of aesthetic processes. Thus, to expand the picture of visual aesthetics in HCI, future research should emphasize more reflective evaluation and contemplation of designed products and environments.

Another research topic that has yet to receive attention is the (dis)connect between designers and users. In other design disciplines, studies have found significant differences in aesthetic evaluation between laypeople and designers (e.g., Nasar, 1997 and Gifford et al, 2000, in the field of architecture). In HCI such differences were found by Korman-Golander (2011) between designers and software engineering students in assessments of web-site design trends. Similarly, Inbar et al. (2007) and Bateman et al. (2010) found that the minimalist design recommendations for charts made by Tufte’s (1983) influential critique of “chartjunk” practices do not resonate with people’s actual preference of chart types. To date, I am aware of only a few studies (e.g., Park et al. (2004) and Bateman et al, 2010) that have tried to tease out the sources of those differences, and to offer methods that would help bridge the gap between designers and other members of the development team and between the development team and intended users.

In his seminal work on the extended self, Belk (1988) listed various product categories in which there is significant image congruity between a brand or a product category and self images of owners. The list does not include IT products, but there are good reasons to expect that such congruity holds, for example, in the choice of personal computing, smart phones, media players, software, etc. We may then explore what role visual aesthetics plays in motivating people to choose those interactive media.

In discussing our early work on the relationships between aesthetic and perceived attributes of the system we called on researchers “to shed more light on the cognitive and/or affective processes that lead users to associate interface aesthetics with other system attributes” (Tractinsky et al., 2000, p. 140). Several studies have recently taken on this challenge. For example, Hassenzahl & Monk (2010) suggest that perceived aesthetics affects users’ evaluation of the system’s goodness, which in turn influences evaluations of the system’s usability. Similarly, Lindgaard et al. (2011) suggest that the initial attraction generated by a system’s aesthetics forms “a general attitude” of aesthetic, which is later refined through further use of the system and reflection based on high level emotional and cognitive processing. However, it seems that there is ample room for continuous research on the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. In particular, studies about the interplay of emotional and cognitive factors (Sun & Zhang, 2006;Thuring & Mahlke, 2007) at the three levels of processing (Norman, 2004) are sorely needed.

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Studies of visual aesthetics in HCI have for the most part concentrated on the relatively stable properties of the user interface design. Thus, studies have used website screenshots, interactive products’ hardware design, or general aesthetic features of systems. Little attention was paid to dynamic aspects of visual aesthetics. With the increased embedding of dynamic visualizations, video clips and various animations in interactive systems we need to have a better grasp of their aesthetic qualities (Chen, 2005). Some initial steps in this direction can be found in a study of perceived aesthetic dimensions of animations, done in the context of in-car presentation of eco-driving information (Tractinsky et al., 2011b) ����

Finally, much of the variability in people’s assessment of visual design and the effects of visual design can be attributed to individual and cultural factors. These factors may include differences in sensitivity to visual aesthetics, different weighing of visual aesthetics when appraising systems and products, and different notions of what is considered beautiful. Such studies could explore why and how people personalize interactive systems and products (e.g., Tractinsky and Lavie, 2002, Tractinsky & Zmiri, 2006); why some people prefer ornamented charts or web pages while others prefer minimalist styles (e.g., Inbar et al, 2007; Bateman et al., 2010); why reactions to website color treatments differ among different cultures (Cyr et al., 2010); and whether people belonging to different trend and fashion adoption groups prefer different website designs (Korman-Golander 2011).

Conclusion

Interest in visual aesthetics in HCI has grown considerably over the last 15 years. From a short conference paper that reported correlations between perceived aesthetics and apparent usability (Korosu and Kashimura, 1995) to a rich field of inquiry. It is possible that the interest in the field was motivated by provocative titles such as “What is beautiful is usable” (Tractinsky et al., 2000) and “Attractive things work better” (Norman, 2004). It is more likely, however, that it corresponded to technological and societal changes that have swept our lives over that time and reshaped the field of human-computer interaction. �

t’s probably the least glamourous part of web design, but information design is by no means the least important. Locating and consuming information is the quintessential web task, far surpassing buying, playing and communicating, all of which include a good portion of information design themselves. How users find and then avail themselves of all that information is affected by how it is structured and presented. Thus every web designer should be equipped to make qualified and informed decisions on just how to do this.

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