No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
What is beautiful is usable
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to test the relationships between users' perceptions of a computerized system's beauty and usability.
The experiment used a computerized application as a surrogate for an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Perceptions were elicited
before and after the participants used the system. Pre-experimental measures indicate strong correlations between system's
perceived aesthetics and perceived usability. Post-experimental measures indicated that the strong correlation remained intact.
A multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that the degree of system's aesthetics affected the post-use perceptions of
both aesthetics and usability, whereas the degree of actual usability had no such effect. The results resemble those found
by social psychologists regarding the effect of physical attractiveness on the valuation of other personality attributes.
The findings stress the importance of studying the aesthetic aspect of human–computer interaction (HCI) design and its relationships
to other design dimensions.
... For a considerable number of years, the influence of product aesthetics on perceived usability has been the subject of research (e.g., Moshagen et al., 2009;Mahlke and Thüring, 2007). This pattern of influence has been termed the 'what-is-beautiful-is-good'-effect (Tractinsky et al., 2000). More recently, the opposite type of influence has also been the subject of research (though much less prominently), which refers to the influence of product usability on perceived aesthetics (e.g., Tuch et al., 2012;Hamborg et al., 2014). ...
... When reviewing the research literature, it emerges that the 'what-isbeautiful-is-good'-effect is widely reported. A range of studies has already examined the influence of product aesthetics on perceived usability, reporting a positive relationship in correlation studies (e.g., Kurosu and Kashimura, 1995;Tractinsky et al., 2000;Hartmann et al., 2007;Schenkman and Jönsson, 2000). A considerable number of experimental studies were also conducted, being able to establish a cause-effect relationship between aesthetics and perceived usability (e. g., Brady and Phillips, 2003;Nakarada-Kordich and Lobb, 2005;Ben--Bassat et al., 2006;Moshagen et al., 2009;Sonderegger and Sauer 2010;Sauer and Sonderegger, 2009). ...
... This suggests that the effects are observed for tangible as well as for non-tangible products. In addition to its generalisability across artefacts, the effect was also found in many different cultures, including Japan (Kurosu and Kashimura, 1995), Israel (Tractinsky et al., 2000;Ben--Bassat et al., 2006), Germany (e.g., Moshagen et al., 2009;Mahlke and Thüring, 2007), and Switzerland (e.g., Sonderegger and Sauer, 2010). Despite the widespread occurrence of the 'what-is-beautifulis-good'-effect, there are a smaller number of studies in the literature, in which the effect did not occur (Tuch et al., 2012;Hamborg et al., 2014;Van Schaik and Ling, 2009). ...
The article reports a longitudinal lab experiment, in which the influence of product aesthetics and inherent product usability was examined over a period of 7 weeks. Using a 2 × 2 × 7 mixed design, visual aesthetics (high vs. low) and usability (high vs. low) were manipulated as between-subjects variables whereas exposure time was used as a repeated-measures variable. One hundred and ten participants took part in the study, during which they carried out typical tasks of operating a fully automated coffee machine. We measured user experience by using the following outcome variables: perceived usability, perceived attractiveness, performance, affect, workload and perceived coffee quality (gustatory aesthetics). We found no effect of visual aesthetics on user experience (including perceived usability as the chief outcome variable), which is in contrast to a considerable number of previous studies. The absence of such an effect might be associated with influencing factors that have not yet been given sufficient attention (e.g., user identification with product, sensory dominance, characteristics of specific products).
... Researchers identified the high influence of visual aesthetics on perceived products performance (Moshagen et al., 2009;Sonderegger and Sauer, 2010). The aesthetics of a product design plays a significant role in the appreciation of technological products (Lavie and Tractinsky, 2004;Tractinsky et al., 2000). For example, Smith and Swinyard (1982) identified that product functionality and aesthetics trigger different responses. ...
... Researchers examined the role of aesthetics in technological products success and adoption (i.e., Lavie and Tractinsky, 2004;Tractinsky, N and M Hassenzahl, 2005). However, studies of technological products mainly emphasised that products need to demonstrate a certain level of usability and relevance for mass market suitability and success (Lavie and Tractinsky, 2004;Tractinsky et al., 2000;Sonderegger and Sauer, 2010). In these studies, engineers and developers focus on usability, while aesthetics is secondary. ...
... This study contributes to digital innovation management theory. First, the research highlights the importance of aesthetics in the existing "usability vs. aesthetics" discourse in product development and Human-Computing Interaction, concluding that product functionality is not sufficient to make a product successful in early developments (Abras et al., 2004;Ivory and Hearst, 2001;Lavie and Tractinsky, 2004; The Role of Aesthetics in Early Access Video Games 2140002-15 Rosson and Carroll, 2002;Tractinsky et al., 2000;Thüring and Mahlke, 2007). The study showed that aesthetics play a role within digital products and services and virtual environments. ...
This paper investigates the impact of aesthetics in early game development based on a quantitative of 367 early access games. We identified the relationship between aesthetic perception in early video games reflected in the user reviews, comments, and subsequent positive and negative video game recommendations over time. We find that customer co-creation in product innovation is increasingly negative feedback over time when the game’s aesthetic early impression is perceived as negative. The implications for innovation management are that aesthetics design impacts the response to customer-ready prototypes. Managers should take the aesthetic design and user perception in early development into account and not delay the attention to aesthetics to a later product release stage.
... Pourtant, l"impact de l"esthétique dans le cadre de l"informatique et du web a rarement été étudié (Tractinsky et Rao, 2001). Tractinsky et al. (2000) ont pourtant trouvé un lien fort entre la perception de l"esthétique d"une interface informatique et la facilité d"utilisation perçue. Ce qui reprend la sagesse populaire mais également philosophique du « ce qui est beau est bon ». ...
... Tractinsky et al. (2000) ont pourtant trouvé un lien fort entre la perception de l"esthétique d"une interface informatique et la facilité d"utilisation perçue. Ce qui reprend la sagesse populaire mais également philosophique du « ce qui est beau est bon ». Tractinsky et al. (2000) mettent en évidence un effet halo de l"esthétique qui bénéficie à d"autres caractéristiques du système informatique. Ils supposent aussi que la réponse affective à l"esthétique de l"interface améliore l"humeur de l"utilisateur et, par là-même, l"évaluation globale. ...
... Elle pourrait influencer la perception par l"utilisateur d"autres attributs des systèmes informatiques (Jordan, 1998 ;Tractinsky, Shoval-Katz et Ikar, 2000). Des études ont également montré que l"esthétique avait une influence sur la perception des internautes vis-à-vis de la confiance vis-à-vis du site et de la réputation du vendeur (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000 ;Jarvenpaa et Tractinsky, 1999 ;Kim et Moon, 1998). ...
L’objectif de cette thèse est triple : mieux comprendre la notion d’esthétique dans le cadre d’un site Internet ; proposer un outil de mesure de l’esthétique des sites web, l’échelle Websthetic ; comprendre l’influence des caractéristiques esthétiques d’un site Internet sur les variables attitudinales. Pour y parvenir, nous nous sommes appuyés sur la littérature évaluant l’esthétique dans différents domaines et nous l’avons enrichi d’une phase qualitative. Nous avons ainsi collecté 124 items esthétiques. Nous avons réduit ces items par l’intermédiaire d’analyses factorielles exploratoires puis confirmatoires. Au final, nous proposons une double échelle de la perception de l’esthétique d’un site web par le consommateur en six dimensions. D’une part, nous proposons une échelle en fonction de la perception conceptuelle du site. Les items se composent d’adjectifs permettant d’évaluer globalement le site. D’autre part, nous avons développé une échelle structurelle qui se compose d’items esthétiques détaillant la structure de la page. Ensuite, nous avons déterminé l’influence de l’esthétique sur les variables attitudinales. Nous avons pu déterminer le rôle prépondérant de l’harmonie, que ce soit d’un point de vue conceptuel ou structurel. Cette caractéristique esthétique a une influence sur toutes les variables attitudinales étudiées. Nous avons vu également l’influence assez faible de la simplicité, et enfin l’influence marginale du classicisme et de la pauvreté. Une belle page sera une page avec des couleurs harmonieuses, sans couleurs laides, avec du texte facile à lire, avec peu d’illustrations, avec des illustrations bien placées, des rubriques bien disposées. Au niveau managérial, l’échelle Websthetic est immédiatement exploitable par les entreprises. En effet, cette échelle permet de mesurer la perception esthétique d’une façon globale ou détaillée. Un score peut être calculé rapidement et permet de choisir entre différentes versions de sites.
... Scientific research and aesthetics. The study of aesthetics in human-computer interaction has been examined as a separate entity used to display interactions between attractive qualities and usability or user experience (Tractinsky, Katz, Ikar, 2000), trust (Karvonen, Cardholm, Karlsson, 2001;Li, Yeh, 2010) and credibility (Robins & Holmes, 2008). The relations between aesthetics and these other features of human-computer interaction have been demonstrated through correlational and experimental studies (e.g., Sonderegger & Sauer, 2010;Kurosu and Kashimura 1995;Tractinsky et al. 2000), but have not always been shown to influence usability (e.g., Grishin & Gillan, 2019, Alharoon & Gillan, 2020. ...
... The study of aesthetics in human-computer interaction has been examined as a separate entity used to display interactions between attractive qualities and usability or user experience (Tractinsky, Katz, Ikar, 2000), trust (Karvonen, Cardholm, Karlsson, 2001;Li, Yeh, 2010) and credibility (Robins & Holmes, 2008). The relations between aesthetics and these other features of human-computer interaction have been demonstrated through correlational and experimental studies (e.g., Sonderegger & Sauer, 2010;Kurosu and Kashimura 1995;Tractinsky et al. 2000), but have not always been shown to influence usability (e.g., Grishin & Gillan, 2019, Alharoon & Gillan, 2020. In these research studies, displays or websites are grouped based on aesthetic quality (e.g., high or low). ...
User Experience (UX) extends the construct of usability by an additional focus on emotion, motivation and aesthetics. An emphasis on aesthetics has been undertaken to a greater extent by design disciplines than by science. The present review examines both design and scientific approaches to aesthetics in order to integrate the two approaches and identify research opportunities that could result in science based design principals. The review of design approaches to aesthetics indicates the primary importance of balance as an element of design. Accordingly, research on the role of balance in producing aesthetic responses from users is a reasonable starting point for a program of research. Additionally, the analysis of aesthetic metrics and individual differences in aesthetic preferences in scientific research are discussed as possible collaboration areas for designers.
... Hence, (Venkatesh, et al. 2003) defined usability as the degree of ease of use of an information system and usefulness as the belief that the information system is effective for its purpose. Aesthetics symbolises beauty, creativity, and originality (Tractinsky, Katz, and Ikar 2000). Aesthetics is 'the visual appeal of an information system' (Oyibo and Vassileva 2020, 10). ...
... Moreover, Perceived Aesthetics had a strong influence on Perceived Usability. The results lend further credence to the assertion that what is beautiful is usable (Tractinsky, Katz, and Ikar 2000). In other words, the layout, organisation, and presentation of information on a system define how users interact with the system. ...
With technology being ubiquitous in our daily lives, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence their perceived credibility. In the current research, we focus on the design of Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs). In order to facilitate continuous adoption and use of ASNSs, it is important to understand the factors that determine their Perceived Credibility. Using the Persuasive System Design (PSD) framework as a foundation, the study investigated which of these four key constructs (i.e. Perceived Aesthetics, Perceived Usability, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Primary Task Support) are the most relevant determinants of the Perceived Credibility of ASNSs. In an online survey, the current research assessed this research model. The results of Partial Least Square analyses confirmed that Perceived Aesthetics, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Primary Task Support are determinants of Perceived Credibility but provided no evidence for Perceived Usability as a determinant. Moreover, the results showed that Perceived Primary Task Support was the most relevant determinant of Perceived Credibility. Implications of these findings are discussed.
... One concern, however, is that musical representations can create distractions and that music adds something more than is needed for an analysis. In this sense, music is seen as a more favorable component of form rather than function -an issue tied to the long-standing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) debate of which comes first [3]. ...
... Dillon [13] traces the importance of aesthetics, as a basic motivator, back to A. Manslow (1954). Tractinsky et al. argue that aesthetic perceptions are highly correlated by individuals to interface usage; therefore, whether we intend to incorporate aesthetics by design into usage or not, aesthetics are most likely already tied to usage [3], [14]. ...
... Several aspects like product appearance are responsible for generating these first impressions. Previous research suggests that appearance or visual appeal factors are noticed first, determining how consumers evaluate subsequent experiences(Jennings, 2000;Tractinsky et al., 2000). The other attributes of the product are also judged based on the first impression it creates. ...
Background Today consumers expect more from a product than mere fulfillment of the intended function for which the product is designed. Modern-day consumers demand products that match and satisfy their preferences. Contemporary trends in design show consumer inclination towards objects which motivate them, improve their quality of life and spark emotions. Consequently, along with the functionality requirements, a product needs to serve consumers' emotional needs, and for that, the product must relate with them at their emotional level. The product's visual appearance is responsible for engendering first impressions and initiating a connection at the emotional level before product purchase. Previous research suggests that the emotional element of design could be more crucial in deciding the success of the product than the functional aspect as it affects consumer's decision-making in choosing a product. Therefore, design directed by emotional content is gaining more and more importance in current design practices, research, and education. Thus, designers must possess the necessary knowledge and skills to deal with this design paradigm of product emotions, analyzing the relationship between emotion, consumer behavior, and product design. This paper investigates associations between fundamental product design elements, product judgment attributes, consumer emotional response, and consumer behavior in the context of before product purchase scenario through an integrative review of literature in the domain of product design and emotions. Methods The study is an integrative review of papers from major journals in design, consumer research, management, philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and marketing on the topic of Emotional Design from January 2000 to August 2020. 133 relevant articles were shortlisted and analyzed considering the purpose, methods, and main findings of the studies. Results The four major categories that emerged through the analysis of the shortlisted articles were 1. The Terminology used in Emotion Research, 2. Consumer Emotions and their relation with the other factors such as fundamental product design elements, product judgment criteria, consumer behavior, and environmental factors in the 'before product purchase' scenario, 3. Theories of Product Emotion, and 4. Assessment of Emotion. Conclusions A multi-faceted evaluation of articles of the first two categories resulted in proposing a new theoretical framework investigating consumer emotional response before product purchase context. The framework has been described illustrating key terms and associations between them with future directions on Emotional Design. It is expected that design practitioners, cognitive scientists, and ergonomists would find the developed framework helpful while designing products that elicit desired emotional responses.
... For example, the head was too large and the thorax too small. Since an aesthetically optimised appearance may improve care providers' acceptance and a technology's perceived usability [23], the initial design of Visual-Patient-avatar required adaptions in terms of functionality and aesthetics before its introduction to clinical reality. ...
Visual-Patient-avatar, an avatar-based visualisation of patient monitoring, is a newly developed technology aiming to promote situation awareness through user-centred design. Before the technology’s introduction into clinical practice, the initial design used to validate the concept had to undergo thorough examination and adjustments where necessary. This mixed qualitative and quantitative study, consisting of three different study parts, aimed to create a design with high user acceptance regarding perceived professionalism and potential for identification while maintaining its original functionality. The first qualitative part was based on structured interviews and explored anaesthesia personnel’s first impressions regarding the original design. Recurrent topics were identified using inductive coding, participants’ interpretations of the vital sign visualisations analysed and design modifications derived. The second study part consisted of a redesign process, in which the visualisations were adapted according to the results of the first part. In a third, quantitative study part, participants rated Likert scales about Visual-Patient-avatar’s appearance and interpreted displayed vital signs in a computer-based survey. The first, qualitative study part included 51 structured interviews. Twenty-eight of 51 (55%) participants mentioned the appearance of Visual-Patient-avatar. In 23 of 51 (45%) interviews, 26 statements about the general impression were identified with a balanced count of positive (14 of 26) and negative (12 of 26) comments. The analysis of vital sign visualisations showed deficits in several vital sign visualisations, especially central venous pressure. These findings were incorporated into part two, the redesign of Visual-Patient-avatar. In the subsequent quantitative analysis of study for part three, 20 of 30 (67%) new participants agreed that the avatar looks professional enough for medical use. Finally, the participants identified 73% (435 of 600 cases) of all vital sign visualisations intuitively correctly without prior instruction. This study succeeded in improving the original design with good user acceptance and a reasonable degree of intuitiveness of the new, revised design. Furthermore, the study identified aspects relevant for the release of Visual-Patient-avatar, such as the requirement for providing at least some training, despite the design’s intuitiveness. The results of this study will guide further research and improvement of the technology. The study provides a link between Visual-Patient-avatar as a scientific concept and as an actual product from a cognitive engineering point of view, and may serve as an example of methods to study the designs of technologies in similar contexts.
... The online distribution of public health infographics could be an effective method to communicate information in an engaging format, as these infographics have been found to increase user initial engagement with scientific information displayed on social media (Ibrahim et al., 2017;Thoma et al., 2018;Lindquist and Ramirez-Zohfeld, 2019). Research has also shown that visually attractive designs are considered more usable (Tractinsky et al., 2000;Linghammar, 2007). Carefully designing infographics in adherence to design principles could increase user engagement and improve information location, particularly the location of important public health information, such as COVID-19 public safety practices. ...
Infographics are becoming a common tool in the communication of public-health information. However, research-based resources in how to create effective infographics are rare. The application of design principles in the creation of infographics has been shown to more effectively communicate information. Here, the research explores the adherence of 84 research-based infographic design principles on 3 designs of varying levels of application. A multi-method approach, including eye-tracking, was used to record information location efficiency, memorability and user perception. Support was found in favour of utilising design principles in the creation of public health infographics; resulting in improved user opinion and information location.
... Cuando hablamos de navegabilidad y UX web es importante que sea sencilla y genere emociones positivas en los usuarios. Como muestra el primer estudio sobre webs de supermercados, en ambos casos la atención se centra en la parte central, sin embargo, en la página con gran número de elementos la atención se dispersa provocando una mayor actividad y negativa, esto podría afectar a la percepción sobre la empresa (Tractinsky et al., 2000). Otras investigaciones muestran como los elementos que más se ven son aquellos en parte central y superior izquierda de la página (Schröter et al., 2021;Nielsen, 2000;Espigares-Jurado et al., 2020) y cómo el uso de imágenes y textos pueden influir en la credibilidad y percepción hacia la página y el servicio (Cyr et al., 2009). ...
Las herramientas de neurocomunicación permiten registrar y analizar las respuestas
implícitas o no conscientes de los individuos mientras visualizan una creatividad, un
video, web o un texto. Técnicas como el eye-tracking permiten estudiar la atención, el
engagement, la atracción y procesos cognitivos de forma cuantitativa y rigurosa. Los
objetivos son: 1) analizar las características de diferentes herramientas para el estudio de
eye-tracking, 2) estudiar las diferencias entre el eye-tracker fijo y online, 3) definir la
funcionalidad de las diferentes herramientas en función del tipo de investigación
deseada y 4) estudiar distintos diseños metodológicos de neurocomunicación con
diferentes tipos de eye-tracking. Para ello se realiza un análisis descriptivo en profundad
de varios tipos de tracker (fijo y online), características y medidas biométricas. Se
analizan tres casos exploratorios aplicados a partir de distintos diseños metodológicos
que permita definir la funcionalidad de estas herramientas en el campo de la
investigación de la comunicación.
... This last point emphasises the need for interactive systems to provide users with episodes of pleasing or engaging use. For example, in the design of an ATM terminal, Tractinsky et al. [73] assert that "what is beautiful is usable", suggesting that pleasure derived from the perceived beauty of an interactive system might help to prevent user boredom or frustration in the achievement of practical tasks. ...
Within the worldwide diving community, underwater photography is becoming increasingly popular. However, the marine environment presents certain challenges for image capture, with resulting imagery often suffering from colour distortions, low contrast and blurring. As a result, image enhancement software is used not only to enhance the imagery aesthetically, but also to address these degradations. Although feature-rich image enhancement software products are available, little is known about the user experience of underwater photographers when interacting with such tools. To address this gap, we conducted an online questionnaire to better understand what software tools are being used, and face-to-face interviews to investigate the characteristics of the image enhancement user experience for underwater photographers. We analysed the interview transcripts using the pragmatic and hedonic categories from the frameworks of Hassenzahl (Funology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 31–42, 2003; Funology 2, Springer, pp 301–313, 2018) for positive and negative user experience. Our results reveal a moderately negative experience overall for both pragmatic and hedonic categories. We draw some insights from the findings and make recommendations for improving the user experience for underwater photographers using image enhancement tools.
... 16 The association of beauty with usability is sufficiently well-established that aesthetics is also relevant. 17 More specific to chatbot interaction, we are interested in whether the chatbot gives appropriate responses and understands users' input. Beyond subjective user data, performance also encompasses objective measures of the chatbot interaction such as number of conversational turns in a session or time taken, and measures that require some interpretation but are still well-defined such as task completion. ...
Background In recent years, an increasing number of health chatbots has been published in app stores and described in research literature. Given the sensitive data they are processing and the care settings for which they are developed, evaluation is essential to avoid harm to users. However, evaluations of those systems are reported inconsistently and without using a standardized set of evaluation metrics. Missing standards in health chatbot evaluation prevent comparisons of systems, and this may hamper acceptability since their reliability is unclear.
Objectives The objective of this paper is to make an important step toward developing a health-specific chatbot evaluation framework by finding consensus on relevant metrics.
Methods We used an adapted Delphi study design to verify and select potential metrics that we retrieved initially from a scoping review. We invited researchers, health professionals, and health informaticians to score each metric for inclusion in the final evaluation framework, over three survey rounds. We distinguished metrics scored relevant with high, moderate, and low consensus. The initial set of metrics comprised 26 metrics (categorized as global metrics, metrics related to response generation, response understanding and aesthetics).
Results Twenty-eight experts joined the first round and 22 (75%) persisted to the third round. Twenty-four metrics achieved high consensus and three metrics achieved moderate consensus. The core set for our framework comprises mainly global metrics (e.g., ease of use, security content accuracy), metrics related to response generation (e.g., appropriateness of responses), and related to response understanding. Metrics on aesthetics (font type and size, color) are less well agreed upon—only moderate or low consensus was achieved for those metrics.
Conclusion The results indicate that experts largely agree on metrics and that the consensus set is broad. This implies that health chatbot evaluation must be multifaceted to ensure acceptability.
... Individuals are generally attracted to objects or people with aesthetically appealing features and appearances (Dion et al., 1972), and several scholars have indicated that individuals tend to have more positive assessments of products that have an attractive appearance and features (Goodman et al., 2013;Tractinsky et al., 2000). ...
With the outbreak of COVID-19, the video game console market is thriving again. In this study, we attempted to explore users’ intention to use video game consoles by developing a causal model mainly based on coolness theory and the technology acceptance model. To better illustrate user experience for video game consoles, we added several concepts to the causal model, including hedonic motivation, system and service quality, perceived cost, and game variety. Through examining survey-based data from 360 Koreans, we discovered that the model had a high explanatory power for users’ intention to use video game consoles. The key findings were as follows: First, among the components of coolness theory, individuals’ attitude toward consoles was significantly related to subcultural appeal and originality, but not to attractiveness. Second, originality positively influenced subcultural appeal significantly. Overall, this study implied that the novel coolness theory is effective for exploring user experience regarding of specific devices and services.
... Aesthetics has always been considered as a criterion for designing effective human-machine interactions (Alben, 1996). However, in the past, the emphasis was mainly on efficiency (Tractinsky et al., 2000). Visual design is the first element that users encounter when entering a website, and it prompts cognitive and emotional responses in the users, influencing the evaluation of the website (Hartono & Holsapple, 2019;Jiang et al., 2016;Lavie & Tractinsky, 2004;Strebe, 2016;Tsai, 2017). ...
Over the last years, the use of technology has become a crucial part of a visitor’s experience in a cultural context. This proved to be even more important in the last months when the Covid-19 pandemic crisis spurred museums and other cultural institutions to use digital tools to deliver their services online. In this changing scenario, digital technologies appear as powerful tools also for corporate museums, held and run by private companies as precious vehicles to share organizational past, values and identity with different stakeholders. The present study is aimed at identifying the website elements that affect users’ intentions in the unexplored context of corporate museums. To this aim, an innovative multimethod approach was used. Drawing on sample data from 736 users of four different Italian corporate museums’ websites and combining Fuzzy-set. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), the current investigation shows that the intention to visit a corporate museum depends on elements that are related to both the digital environment and the social context.
... This study revealed that the learners in the anthropomorphized multimedia lesson reported significantly less intrinsic load concerning the learning topic than those in the non-anthropomorphized version, cohering with recent meta-analyses indicating that anthropomorphism and pleasant colors robustly reduce perceived difficulty (Brom et al., 2018;Wong & Adesope, 2020). According to Brom et al. (2018), emotional design in anthropomorphism and pleasant colors can produce aesthetically pleasing materials, subsequently offering the illusion that the learning topics or materials are easier and require less effort to process (Salomon, 1984;Tractinsky et al., 2000). In this study's context, the anthropomorphic cute and funny human-like visuals and dialogues depicting the malware, bots, and servers might have caused the learners to perceive the educational subject regarding DDoS as less "serious" and less challenging, which translated to lower intrinsic load (i.e., reduced perceived difficulty of the learning topic). ...
Emotional design refers to imbuing a multimedia learning environment with design attributes that promote learners’ positive affect and motivation to enhance learning. One such feature is anthropomorphism, in which human-like attributes are infused into learning elements in a multimedia learning environment. This study examines the affective, motivational, and cognitive effects of incorporating cute and funny human-like images and dialogues into learning objects depicting malware, bots, and servers in an animation conveying a lesson on how a distributed denial-of-service attack occurs. A between-subjects online experiment was conducted in which undergraduates from a large Asian university (n = 70) engaged with either the anthropomorphized or non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. The findings partially supported the anthropomorphism effects on learners’ affective-motivational states insofar as the anthropomorphized multimedia lesson evoked a significantly greater change of positive affect but did not differently affect intrinsic motivation and learning outcome than the non-anthropomorphized version. Concerning cognitive load, anthropomorphism led to significantly lower perceived difficulty regarding the learning topic (intrinsic load), which conforms with most emotional design findings. There was a marginal trend in which learners engaged longer with the anthropomorphized than the non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. This study offers insights on anthropomorphism in multimedia learning that extends to cultural factors unique to Asian learners and information technology subject domain. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed through the lens of cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, integrated cognitive affective model of learning with multimedia, and cognitive load theory. Future directions concerning anthropomorphism research in the multimedia learning context are addressed in this paper.
... According to research, the perceived usability of a product is significantly influenced by the product's attractiveness (Chawda et al., 2005). It asserted that what is aesthetically pleasing is also usable (Tractinsky et al., 2000). Attractiveness is associated with design, animation, or visual elements that capture the user's attention in one go (Hsiao et al., 2016). ...
Malaysia is confronting a type 2 diabetes (T2DM) epidemic; around 3.9 million Malaysians have T2DM. Lifestyle modification intervention is effective in reducing or delaying the onset of T2DM among high-risk individuals. The Malaysia Diabetes Prevention Programme (MyDiPP) app is a lifestyle intervention digital therapy with multiple approaches (weight loss, dietary modification, physical activity, and quality of life). This study aimed to assess the usability of the MyDiPP mobile app among high-risk individuals in Kuala Terengganu. A random sample of 10 users was selected in the usability evaluation of the MyDiPP mobile app. Data collection methods included an online survey on the usability aspect of mobile apps in terms of usefulness, ease of use, satisfaction, and ease of learning. The results showed that MyDiPP mobile app is useful, easy to use, satisfying, and easy to learn from the high-risk adults' perspectives with slightly agree, moderately agree, and strongly agree to have the highest percentage. From these results, it can be inferred that, from the perspective of high-risk individuals, MyDiPP mobile app meets the usability aspects and can be used to help prevent the development of diabetes among at-risk adults.
... Visual elements are central to game usability which addresses the game interface presented between the player and the game itself [24]. The frustration of poor visual design and aesthetics of a game lowers ratings on users' perception of usability [67] which indicates that usability deficiencies may negatively affect the experience of flow and immersion [46], and positive and negative emotions [2]. ...
This experimental study explores how game experience differs between players with different gameplay histories within the same game universe. We are interested in how prolonged engagement with a game series affects the gameplay experience in relation to the most recent game version in the series. A total of 54 participants were divided into four groups depending on their gaming experience, namely non-gamers, new-gamers, old-gamers and core-gamers. They played the mobile version of Super Mario Run, and questionnaire data was collected after the gameplay session. The results of the study showed that not only the players’ personal gameplay history but also the length of experience or degree of familiarity with the game universe affected the experience of playing a new game in the same game universe. Additionally, familiarity with the game universe had a positive impact on the feeling of competence, immersion, emotions and flow.
... While our work on the hedonic certainly progressed, the field, and especially the more computer science-oriented HCI people, remained skeptical about the role of fun, enjoyment and beauty in human-computer interaction. For example, in a seminal paper Noam Tractinsky and colleagues [71] claimed that "What is beautiful is usable". They found a correlation between subjectively perceived usability and judgments of beauty. ...
Twenty years ago, we published an article in the first issue of the i-com entitled “Usability ist nicht alles” (Burmester et al., 2002), that is, “Usability isn’t everything”. This was certainly a provocative title. For most German researchers and practitioners of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) usability was all there is and all that was ever needed to guarantee humane technology. Back then, we profoundly disagreed. We were convinced that there is more to the quality of interactive technology than mere effectiveness and efficiency. Now, twenty years later it seems safe to say that we had a point. Let’s take this as an opportunity to take a brief and utterly anecdotal look back, to take stock of the current perspective on designing the (user) experience, as well as to discuss some future opportunities and challenges.
... This shift in paradigm, however, hampered the growth of UX as a study discipline, raising issues about its measurability, because users' subjective judgments appeared to be too hazy to be believed [21]. The publication of Tractinsky, Katz, and Ikar's 'What is beautiful is usable' [32] raised the significance of aesthetics in product quality evaluation and judgment, prompting a flood of UX research on topics such as aesthetic beauty [34][35], joy of use [20], attractiveness [19], enjoyment [17], and hedonic quality [33]. ...
This study used a literature review technique to acquire a better grasp of the available literatures on user experience modeling. The findings support a 3-factor user experience (UX) paradigm, which includes expected monovalent ergonomic, expected bivalent hedonomic, and unexpected monovalent hedonomic qualities, according to the findings. These attributes are arranged in a hierarchical fashion, according to the review. Each rung of the hierarchy is crucial for software product design and evaluation in order to improve UX design and assessment. As a result, software designers and assessors should consider this model. The study is limited however, because the conclusions, albeit interesting, were derived from a literature survey rather than an empirical investigation. This conceptual model will be empirically verified and validated in future works.
... A user's first impression of a particular platform (e.g., website) will directly influence their review of the platform's usability [36]. Visual appeal has been confirmed can enhance consumers' virtual haptic experience, subsequently facilitating consumers to possess intense positive perceived enjoyment [39,41]. ...
Consumer's impulsive behavior affects the sales and revenue of the merchants or businesses. This study adopts the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-OR) Model to examine the impact of users' E-wallet usage behavior on impulse buying. The results obtained from 199 valid online questionnaires show that the perceived enjoyment of using an E-wallet positively affects users' impulse buying behavior. Subjective norms and visual appeal positively influence perceived enjoyment. This study found that consumers' impulsive buying behavior positively impacted satisfaction, indicating that consumers making unplanned purchases using E-wallet would positively influence their satisfaction towards E-wallet. In sum, the findings of this study could provide valuable insights for mobile payment applications designers (e.g., E-wallet) in better understanding users' preferences for E-wallet. Furthermore, the findings presented in this research could also provide practical implications for the merchants or marketers to strengthen their impulse buying strategy.
... In addition, these dimensions are correlated with one another (e.g. user perceived satisfaction, aesthetics and usability [71], perceived usefulness and satisfaction [72]), as most of them were developed from usability research, which represents an additional shortcoming. ...
In the era of 'information overload', effective information provision is essential for enabling rapid response and critical decision making. In making sense of diverse information sources, dashboards have become an indispensable tool, providing fast, effective, adaptable, and personalized access to information for professionals and the general public alike. However, these objectives place heavy requirements on dashboards as information systems in usability and effective design. Understanding these issues is challenging given the absence of consistent and comprehensive approaches to dashboard evaluation. In this article we systematically review literature on dashboard implementation in healthcare, where dashboards have been employed widely, and where there is widespread interest for improving the current state of the art, and subsequently analyse approaches taken towards evaluation. We draw upon consolidated dashboard literature and our own observations to introduce a general definition of dashboards which is more relevant to current trends, together with seven evaluation scenarios - task performance, behaviour change, interaction workflow, perceived engagement, potential utility, algorithm performance and system implementation. These scenarios distinguish different evaluation purposes which we illustrate through measurements, example studies, and common challenges in evaluation study design. We provide a breakdown of each evaluation scenario, and highlight some of the more subtle questions. We demonstrate the use of the proposed framework by a design study guided by this framework. We conclude by comparing this framework with existing literature, outlining a number of active discussion points and a set of dashboard evaluation best practices for the academic, clinical and software development communities alike.
... Funktionale Schönheit ist ein Schlüsselelement für ein gutes UX (Albertazzi et al., 2019;Kapp, 2012;Richter & Flückiger, 2016;Sailer, 2016;Semler, 2016;Tractinsky et al., 2000) und fördert die Immersion der Nutzenden (Kapp, 2012 Animationen sind an die physikalischen Gegebenheiten der realen Welt angelehnt, um die Immersion zu steigern (Semler, 2016). ...
In vielen Studiengängen kommt es durch die oft heterogenen Vorkenntnisse in der Studieneingangsphase zu mangelnder Motivation durch Über- oder Unterforderung. Dieses Problem tritt auch in der musiktheoretischen Grundausbildung an Hochschulen auf. Durch Einsatz von Elementen, die aus dem Unterhaltungskontext geläufig sind, kann eine Steigerung der Motivation erreicht werden. Die Nutzung solcher Elemente wird als Gamification bezeichnet. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, am Fallbeispiel der musiktheoretischen Grundausbildung zu analysieren, ob Lerngelegenheiten durch einen gamifizierten interaktiven Prototyp einer Lernumgebung unterstützt werden können. Dazu wird die folgende Forschungsfrage gestellt: Inwieweit wirkt Gamification auf die Motivation bei den Lernenden zur Beschäftigung mit dem Thema (musikalische) Funktionsanalyse? Um die Forschungsfragen zu beantworten, wurde zunächst ein systematisches, theoriegeleitetes Vorgehensmodell zur Gamification von Lernumgebungen entwickelt und angewandt. Der so entstandene Prototyp wurde anschließend um alle Game-Design-Elemente reduziert und im Rahmen einer experimentellen Studie mit zwei unabhängigen Versuchsgruppen mit der gamifizierten Variante verglichen. Die Untersuchung zeigte, dass die Gamification einer Lernanwendung nach dem entwickelten Vorgehensmodell grundsätzlich das Potenzial besitzt, manche Aspekte des Nutzungserlebnisses (UX) positiv zu beeinflussen. Insbesondere hatte die Gamification positive Effekte auf die Joy of Use und die Immersivität. Allerdings blieb das Ausmaß der beobachteten Effekte deutlich hinter den Erwartungen zurück, die auf Basis verschiedener Motivationstheorien getroffen wurden. Daher erscheint Gamification besonders in außeruniversitären Kontexten vielversprechend, in denen der Fokus auf einer Erhöhung der Joy of Use oder einer Steigerung der Immersivität liegt. Allerdings lassen sich durch die Untersuchung neue Erkenntnisse zur emotionalen Wirkung von Gamification und zu einem systematischen Vorgehen bei der Gamification von Lernanwendungen herausstellen. Weiterführende Forschung könnte an diese Erkenntnisse anknüpfen, indem sie die emotionale Wirkung von Gamification und deren Einfluss auf die Motivation näher untersucht. Darüber hinaus sollte sie Gamification auch aus einer entscheidungstheoretischen Perspektive betrachten und Analysemethoden entwickeln, mit denen entschieden werden kann, ob der Einsatz von Gamification zur Motivationssteigerung in einem spezifischen Anwendungsfall zielführend ist. Unter Verwendung des entwickelten Vorgehensmodells kann es sinnvoll sein, näher zu untersuchen, welche Faktoren insgesamt für das Gelingen einer Gamification-Maßnahme in Bildungskontexten entscheidend sind. Die Erkenntnisse einer solchen Untersuchung könnten entscheidend zur Verbesserung und Validierung des Vorgehensmodells beitragen.
... Researchers and designers have made a lot of efforts including guidelines and principles (Blair-Early and Zender, 2008) to make interfaces more attractive to users (Sears and Jacko, 2009) by improving the interaction functionality and usability of interfaces (Goodwin, 1987). However, management and marketing studies suggest that the affecting factors of design (Edell and Burke, 1987) can shape the emotions of users (Darden and Babin, 1994) and that the visual aesthetics related to feelings and emotions have substantial effects on users' perception of interface functionality and usability (Tractinsky et al., 2000). Stemming from psychology, the studies of interface design from the visual aesthetics perspective utilize users' aesthetic preferences to study the attractiveness of interface designs. ...
Businesses and scholars have been trying to improve marketing effect by optimizing mobile marketing interfaces aesthetically as users browse freely and aimlessly through mobile marketing interfaces. Although the layout is an important design factor that affects interface aesthetics, whether it can trigger customer's aesthetic preferences in mobile marketing remains unexplored. To address this issue, we employ an empirical methodology of event-related potentials (EPR) in this study from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Subjects are presented with a series of mobile marketing interface images of different layouts with identical marketing content. Their EEG waves were recorded as they were required to distinguish a target stimulus from the others. After the experiment, each of the subjects chose five stimuli interfaces they like and five they dislike. By analyzing the ERP data derived from the EEG data and the behavioral data, we find significant differences between the disliked interfaces and the other interfaces in the ERP component of P2 from the frontal-central area in the 200–400 ms post-stimulus onset time window and LPP from both the frontal-central and parietal-occipital area in the 400–600 ms time window. The results support the hypothesis that humans do make rapid implicit aesthetic preferences for interface layouts and suggest that even under a free browsing context like the mobile marketing context, interface layouts that raise high emotional arousal can still attract more user attention and induce users' implicit aesthetic preference.
... The legibility of the currently used color scheme design has been verified with a complementary software tool, namely ColorOracle2 [25], an open-source simulator of color-impaired vision. Finally, some consideration has been given to the overall appeal of the VSD design as it affects perception of use due to the aesthetic-usability effect (cf. [28,45]). This is because users often perceive interfaces with aesthetically pleasing designs to be more practical. ...
... In addition, the Effectiveness and Appeal ratings for designs were highly correlated. It may be that users were more attracted to designs they believed could spark environmentally-conscious behaviors; on the other hand, it is well known that designs that are more visually attractive are generally perceived to be more effective and work better (Kurosu and Kashimura 1995;Tractinsky et al. 2000), regardless of whether they actually are. One limitation of this study is that the results were immediate user evaluations of designs. ...
Eco-feedback is a design strategy that reminds users of their resource consumption as they use a product. The ultimate goal is to promote pro-environmental behaviors in users by making them aware of the environmental impact of their consumption. The way these designs present resource usage information can significantly impact user perceptions. This paper investigates two aspects of resource usage presentation, quantitative feedback and emotional evocativeness, by evaluating 32 designs spanning electricity, materials, transportation, and water via surveys of 619 university students in the US and Saudi Arabia. Both these aspects are positively correlated with perceived product appeal and perceived effectiveness in encouraging sustainable behavior. It was found that presenting quantitative resource usage information was more helpful to respondents who could better estimate resource consumption, while the emotional evocativeness of a design aided respondents with lower and higher resource consumption knowledge to a similar degree. In addition, we found that images of living creatures and strong visual cues evoked strong emotions in users. Female participants, in general, responded more strongly than males to this emotional evocativeness. These experimental findings cast light on how to better design eco-feedback products to be more widely accepted.
... Website aesthetic is processed within ca. half a second [4] and influences several other constructs such as usability [50] or the intention to revisit a website [32]. Lee and Koubek [30] propose that, while usability and aesthetics have a stronger influence on the first impression, content is the strongest predictor of behavioral responses to the website. ...
The vast majority of the German population uses the internet on a regular basis. Past research has shown that depressiveness has a negative influence on the user experience of websites, which in turn is an important predictor for the success of web content. The present study investigates the influence of worrying and intolerance of uncertainty on web users’ experience. As a secondary analysis of a longitudinal online study including 395 participants, this study includes participants’ self-assessed worrying (PSWQ-d) and intolerance of uncertainty (IU-18) as well as evaluation of websites they visited. Structural equation modelling was used to determine the relationship of worrying and intolerance of uncertainty with user experience.
While worrying showed only small and with the exception of usability not-significant effects on content and aesthetics, intolerance of uncertainty surprisingly showed small and significant positive relationships with all facets of user experience. In contrast to our initial expectations, participants who worry more do not seem to face strong limitations in finding resources and information on the internet. Further research should instead focus on intolerance of uncertainty as a possible antecedent of positive user experience to enhance our understanding of the mechanisms leading to its positive relation with user experience.
... Moreover, Kant's approach to aesthetics appears to be concerned with a limited number of objects or events, particularly those that are natural, such as flowers and landscapes. However, as discussed above, many artificial objects or products are aesthetically or beautifully designed to serve certain utilities and purposes, and the perceived beauty also enhances the perceived usability of products (Lavie & Tractinsky, 2004;Tractinsky et al., 2000). For example, we purchase a beautiful flat to live a comfortable and secure life; we buy a nice car for our self satisfaction, and thus their purposes or functionalities are directly associated with desire or self-interest. ...
This integrative review rearticulates the notion of human aesthetics by critically appraising the conventional definitions, offerring a new, more comprehensive definition, and identifying the fundamental components associated with it. It intends to advance holistic understanding of the notion by differentiating aesthetic perception from basic perceptual recognition, and by characterizing these concepts from the perspective of information processing in both visual and nonvisual modalities. To this end, we analyze the dissociative nature of information processing in the brain, introducing a novel local-global integrative model that differentiates aesthetic processing from basic perceptual processing. This model builds on the current state of the art in visual aesthetics as well as newer propositions about nonvisual aesthetics. This model comprises two analytic channels: aesthetics-only channel and perception-to-aesthetics channel. The aesthetics-only channel primarily involves restricted local processing for quality or richness (e.g., attractiveness, beauty/prettiness, elegance, sublimeness, catchiness, hedonic value) analysis, whereas the perception-to-aesthetics channel involves global/extended local processing for basic feature analysis, followed by restricted local processing for quality or richness analysis. We contend that aesthetic processing operates independently of basic perceptual processing, but not independently of cognitive processing. We further conjecture that there might be a common faculty, labeled as aesthetic cognition faculty, in the human brain for all sensory aesthetics albeit other parts of the brain can also be activated because of basic sensory processing prior to aesthetic processing, particularly during the operation of the second channel. This generalized model can account not only for simple and pure aesthetic experiences but for partial and complex aesthetic experiences as well.
... It is a critical information diagnostic indicator in the decision-making of people (Mudambi and Schuff, 2010). The relationship between aesthetics and usability has been confirmed in the field of information systems (Tractinsky et al., 2000;Sanchez-Franco and Rondan-Cataluña, 2010;Longstreet et al., 2021). Based on the "Gestalt" approach, theorists suggest that individuals intend to organize different elements of a visual presentation together to make an overall judgment as well as the associated inference from one another (Tonder and Van Spehar, 2013;Park et al., 2015;Bhandari et al., 2019). ...
The visual revolution and attention economy of the digital world have put visual aesthetic communication into the primary position of social media marketing. However, this phenomenon remains underexplored within social commerce research. This study thus develops a visual information adoption unimodel (VIAUM), to explore the relationship between visual aesthetics and social commerce intentions. Users with social commerce experience are invited to complete our online survey, and 321 valid data are collected. The results reveal that visual aesthetics has direct and indirect ( via perceived usefulness) effects on the social commerce intention of users. Besides, interdependent self-construal (InterSC) strengthens the direct effect between visual aesthetics and social commerce intention. In contrast, independent self-construal weakens the mediation effects of perceived usefulness. This study is among the first attempts to empirically examine the intervening mechanism and boundary conditions between the visual aesthetics of self-presentation of micro-celebrity and the social commerce intention of consumers.
... Literature highlights the importance of design to remove barriers, which results in an increasing willingness to use a tool (Lu et al., 2001). Tractinsky et al. (2000) even states that a well-designed product is a better usable product and the SIAT tool attracted positive feedback with its professional appearance. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose an integrated post-adoption model based on expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and flow theory to examine whether gamification and interface design aesthetics as antecedents to students' beliefs can affect their continuance intention of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and perceived impact on learning.
Design/methodology/approach
Sample data for this study were collected from students enrolled in a comprehensive university in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed in the campus, and 318 (53.0%) useable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.
Findings
This study's results verified that students' perceived gamification and interface design aesthetics of MOOCs positively affected their perceived usefulness, confirmation and flow experience elicited by MOOCs, and these in turn directly or indirectly led to their satisfaction, continuance intention of MOOCs and perceived impact on learning. Essentially, the results strongly support the research model with all hypothesized links being significant.
Originality/value
It should be particularly noticed that this study contributes to the application of capturing both ECM and flow experience (i.e. an intrinsic motivator) for completely explaining students' perceived gamification and interface design aesthetics as external variables to their continuance intention of MOOCs and perceived impact on learning, and this study's empirical evidence can further shed light on the possible formulation of MOOCs success.
Research in buildings has lately focused on tackling two main issues: reducing energy use and building better and faster to cope with the expected expansion of cities. The building industry has struggled to adapt to these changes as it is one of the world's largest industries yet one of the least digitalized. One of the challenges is that buildings are becoming more complex to meet these goals and integrate more technologies like renewable energy systems. As a result, there is a need to adopt new methods and tools for designing buildings.
This PhD thesis focused on the design and development of Advanced Building Envelopes (ABEs), which are also sometimes referred to as smart, intelligent, or adaptive building envelopes. ABEs are innovative systems that intend to balance multiple performance aspects such as sustainability, aesthetics, and comfortable indoor environments using new technologies and design approaches. Examples of ABEs may be shading systems that slowly adapt their shape during the day following the sun's path or envelope components specifically designed to optimize energy flows and indoor comfort while harvesting solar energy.
This thesis aims to increase the uptake of ABEs in real-world projects by contributing to characterization systems of new envelope technologies and demonstrating the use of performance-based design approaches. Additionally, it also provided robustness assessments and developed best practice guidelines. This work includes simulations of a specific type of ABE that was an external Venetian blind system with integrated photovoltaic modules. The work developed for the case study used a combination of co-simulation, parametric design, and optimization. The actual performance of the system was also verified in a full-scale experiment.
The thesis' findings highlight that using a performance-based approach had several advantages in addition to providing accurate results. Parametrizing the system's design allowed searching and evaluating many more design alternatives, where eclectic designs could be considered and assessed in a much more efficient manner. Using optimization and co-simulation also allowed generating a set of higher-performing solutions from which one could select a suitable alternative. Finally, this work underlines that new design and evaluation methods can be integrated with initiatives aiming to digitalize building processes and increase collaboration across different engineering fields. However, the types of approaches also require users to develop inter-disciplinary skills and challenge the traditional separation of tasks between architects, engineers, and data scientists.
It is generally considered a bad practice to place animations as backgrounds to text. There are many convincing arguments against using animated backgrounds, yet there are few empirical studies that have assessed effects of animated backgrounds in the context of the web. This study therefore set out to collect empirical evidence to support the recommendation of avoiding animated backgrounds. A remote web-based controlled reading experiment was conducted. The results showed that an animated background led to a significant slower reading speed and lower preference scores. Hence, the empirical evidence supports the established practices.
Entire journalistic empires have been built upon sensational headlines designed to elicit consumer attention and provide advertising partners with what they want most: eyeballs on content. Listicles are used widely for that purpose with little research addressing effective design and viewer perceptions of use. This study proposes the following questions: what are the psychological mechanisms behind a user’s experience with various listicle forms? How does the clickability and length of a listicle influence consumer responses? To answer these questions, a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment was conducted. Findings demonstrated that clickable listicles (vs. scrollable) provide users with greater control, which in turn positively predicted a variety of cognitive outcomes and emotional and attitudinal communicative outcomes. In addition, longer listicles led to greater frustration, which in turn negatively impacted these outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Visualization is widely employed in the engineering industry to fulfill the increasing demand for robust data exploration and insight enhancement tools. It is valued for its ability to improve the performance and efficiency of various engineering tasks. Narrative visualization is a growing interdisciplinary field with a great potential for mission-critical, pressure-filled, and time-sensitive operations. Because of the novelty of the discipline, there is a lack of research focused on design strategies of story-based data representation in the engineering domain. Based on the existing visualization research, we identified four prominent design qualities: aesthetics, usability, novelty, and complexity; and examined them in the context of interactive story-focused engineering visualization. We concluded that: 1) Terminology needs to be re-evaluated in the new context; 2) All four design dimensions we analyzed are subjective and prone to personal interpretation; 3) All four design qualities can be both positive and negative, depending on the context; 4) Trade-off between design qualities has to be made; 5) There is a lack of completed case studies in the field. We hope this research will be beneficial for bridging the gap between storytellers, visualization designers, and engineers, as well as establishing design strategies for this emerging visualization form.
The COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to have an unprecedented impact on museums and exhibition galleries worldwide, with online visitors to museums and exhibitions increasing significantly. The most common method used by web user experience researchers to study user engagement is questionnaires, usually conducted after the user has completed the website experience and relying on the user’s memory and lingering feelings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new method of assessment based on a combination of user electroencephalography (EEG) signals and a self-assessment questionnaire (UES-SF). Since EEG signal measurement is a practical method to detect sequential changes in brain activity without significant time delays, it can comprehend visitors’ unconscious and sensory responses to online exhibitions. This paper employed the Google Arts & Culture (GA&C) website as an example to study 4 different exhibition formats and their impact on user engagement. The questionnaire results showed that the “game interaction” was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in terms of participation than the “2D information Kiosks” and “3D virtual exhibitions” and was the marginally significant (0.05 < p < 0.10) than “video explanation”. However, when we combined the EEG data, we could determine that “game interaction” had the highest user engagement, followed by “video explanation”, “3D virtual exhibition”, and the “2D information kiosk”. Therefore, our new evaluation approach can assist online exhibition user experience researchers in understanding the impact of different forms of interaction on engagement more comprehensively.
In recent years, the goal of companies to retain customers through good usability has evolved into a more holistic view to enhance the user experience. The purely pragmatic view is to be extended by hedonic aspects in order to touch the users also on the emotional level. Although everyone talks about user experience (UX), it still seems to be just “old wine in new bottles”. Despite extensive UX theory research in recent years, UX is still often used as a synonym for usability. Due to increasing vehicle automation, the automotive industry now also has to rethink its (long) existing processes and develop new strategies in order to keep its customers loyal to the brand in the future. Traffic will change fundamentally—and drivers will often neither drive themselves nor own a vehicle. With this book chapter we want to create the basis for this transformation process. After an overview of the current state of UX practice in the development of user interfaces for vehicle automation, the topic is systematically unfolded from the perspective of academia (literature studies) and industry (expert interviews). Based on the findings, the “DAUX framework” is presented as part of a need-centered development approach. It serves as a structured guide on how to define and evaluate UX in consideration of the challenges of automated driving. For this purpose, it provides guidelines on how (a) relevant needs for hypotheses/UI concept development can be identified and (b) UX can be evaluated by triangulating behavioral-, product-, and experience-oriented methods. To demonstrate its potential, the framework is applied in three case studies, each addressing a different level of automation (SAE L2, SAE L3, and SAE L4). This demonstrates that the “DAUX framework” promotes a holistic view of UX to encourage the development of UIs for driving automation. In particular, it is intended to help resolve technical constraints faced by designers and developers in the different levels of automation with the aim to create a positive UX.
In this study we identify the independent dimensions of value derived by users from the use of utilitarian software and the impacts on their loyalty. We use the grounded theory approach to generate the initial set of response from software users through focus group sessions. The responses are content-analyzed and after codification of the emerging themes a list of items are generated. The items so generated are subjected to Exploratory Factor analysis to identify the distinctive and independent value dimensions. After the identification of the value dimensions a survey is administered to another group of participants to assess the impact of these factors on user loyalty. This study a replication of our previous study in the context of ecommerce presented at a top conference (Kakar, 2020f) led to the emergence of psychological safety as a new construct that had the highest correlation with loyalty of software users. The findings of the study have important implications for software product development.
Aesthetics is essential to the design of products. Nevertheless, aesthetic quality is often assessed with inaccurate, ad-hoc scales. Therefore, we have developed the Product Aesthetics Inventory (PAI) and its short version the PAI-S. A pre-study using face-to-face interviews (N = 6 design experts, N = 4 product users) served as basis for the development of test items. The resulting item battery was then used by N = 6002 persons in an online survey to evaluate various types of household appliances. In Study 1, n = 3000 of those participants’ data were used to determine the number of product aesthetics factors and to select the optimal items by combining exploratory graph analysis (EGA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approaches. We found an eight-factor structure consisting of the dimensions Visual aesthetics, Operating elements, Logo, Feedback sounds, Operating sound, Haptic, Interaction aesthetics, and Impression. In Study 2, we confirmed this structure by a CFA with the remaining n = 3002 participants, resulting in excellent model fit. Further, construct validity was confirmed by correlations with other established aesthetic scales, intentions, and general judgments. In both studies, strict measurement invariance was achieved across four household appliances, which further highlights the psychometric quality of the newly developed scales. In Study 3 (N = 1028), we demonstrated that most of the PAI factors as well as reliability, validity, and measurement invariance findings generalized to power tools, office equipment, and home entertainment devices. Finally, we provide recommendations for the usage of the PAI and implications for further research.
An end-use’s experience of any software is typically influenced by the interface presented by the application to the user. For Mixed Reality Environments such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, the user interface is highly visual, and a poor interface can significantly degrade the user experience. Adequate attention is required when designing or creating interfaces and user experience within Mixed Reality Environments as traditional interface design goals and specifications often need to be adjusted. Furthermore, for mixed reality environments on Mobile devices there are additional interface constraints and considerations that would considerably improve the user experience when properly addressed. This research paper discusses the evolution(s) of user interface(s) and user experience of Augmented and Virtual Reality applications on Mobile devices and contributes a framework for improving user interfaces and experience when using Mixed Reality Environments.
There is a long history of humans attempting to understand what drives aesthetic preference. One line of inquiry examines the effects of typicality and novelty on aesthetic responses to designed products. There is currently a wide support towards the ‘Most Advanced Yet Acceptable’ (MAYA) principle, and studies underpinning this have focused on everyday objects. Despite the differences in the function of everyday objects, what they all have in common is their visibility. This do not tell us whether the aesthetic processing will be the same when applied to less visible objects. A study was undertaken using industrial boilers as stimuli and conducted on 7-point Likert scales with participants from Australia and China. The results are unequivocal: novelty makes a medium contribution, while typicality makes a low contribution. This is inconsistent with the notion that typicality is a major determinant of aesthetic preference, suggesting that the current models of aesthetic preference need elaboration.
Visual appeal has been shown to influence perceptions of usability and credibility, and we hypothesize that something similar is happening with user judgments of website security: What is beautiful is secure . Web certificates provide reliable information about a website’s level of security, presented in browser interfaces. Users should use this to inform their trust decisions online, but evidence from laboratory studies and real-world usage suggests that they do not. We conducted two studies—one in lab, and one online—in which participants view and interact with websites with high and low visual appeal, and various security levels, and then make security-related judgments. In both studies, participants consistently rated visually appealing websites as more secure, and indicated they would be more likely to enter sensitive information into visually appealing websites—even when they were less secure. Our results provide evidence that users rely on visual appeal when making security and trust decisions on websites. We discuss how these results may be used to help users.
Different areas of science that study visual perception suggest the influence of color on human behavior and well-being. However, we know very little about the chromatic effect on satisfaction. The study aimed to assess color influence associated with individuals' age on the product's satisfaction of use. A total of 120 female participants (18–29 and 30–55 years old) evaluated a garlic peeler (Experiment I) and a potato masher (Experiment II) in green, red, and gray/silver colors. The methodology used the System Usability Scale Questionnaire, Emotional responses - FaceReader™ software, and a Preference Scale. We noticed no significant difference between age groups regarding the SUS scores in both experiments. However, the gray product received a higher SUS score (p < 0.05) than the other colors, and the Preference Scale rated gray as the worst. On the other hand, in Experiment I, the emotional responses showed that the main variable was the color, and in Experiment II, it was the participants' age (p < 0.05). Based on the present study, we suggest that color is an important variable on the satisfaction of use. The present research presented laboratory experiments that shed light on the importance of color and age variables on the satisfaction of use with kitchen utensils.
Relevance to industry: Color and age driven-knowledge can change how professionals and project teams create their products and user interaction, breaking superficial preconceptions. The present study is part of a research project contributing to the Color and Ergonomics in the Design Industrial field.
The purpose of this study is to examine the success and failure of Human Computer Interactions (HCIs). In particular, we try to find out the key factors contributing to the usability of HCI and a satisfying user experience, and how these two key concepts are interrelated. Based on previous research in the field we demonstrate how an initially multidimensional and complicated phenomenon can be explained and predicted by a relatively simple research model. After the theoretical discussion, this paper develops a research model for measuring usability and the level of satisfaction of the user experience. The model suggests that both key concepts have their own antecedents, but a satisfying user experience necessitates a highly usable interface with the system. Quantitative empirical research was carried out in order to test the hypotheses inherent in the research model, and the data were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Study findings support the main hypothesis that a satisfying user experience is grounded in the usability of the system. Considering both direct and indirect effects, it seems that the most significant driver behind users’ satisfaction is operability, followed by interface esthetics. Nevertheless, it is important to note that comfort, pleasure, trust, and usefulness are quite strong predictors of a satisfying user experience, too. These attributes should not be forgotten when one is in pursuit of a comprehensive design policy in practice.
The physical form or design of a product is an unquestioned determinant of its marketplace success. A good design attracts consumers to a product, communicates to them, and adds value to the product by increasing the quality of the usage experiences associated with it. Nevertheless, the topic of product design is rarely it ever, encountered in marketing journals. To bring needed attention to the subject of product design and enable researchers to better investigate design issues, the author introduces a conceptual model and several propositions that describe how the form of a product relates to consumers' psychological and behavioral responses. After presenting this model, the author describes numerous strategic implications and research directions.
The meaning that persons attribute to environments is divided into perceptual cognitive meaning and affective meaning. Affective meaning is then conceptualized as a 2-dimensional bipolar space that can be defined by 8 variables falling in the following circular order around the perimeter: pleasant (arbitrarily set at 0°), exciting (45°), arousing (90°), distressing (135°), unpleasant (180°), gloomy (225°), sleepy (270°), and relaxing (315°, which is thus 45° from pleasant). Alternatively, the same space can be defined by 2 orthogonal bipolar dimensions of pleasant-unpleasant and arousing-sleepy, or equally well by exciting-gloomy and distressing-relaxing. Reliable verbal scales (based on data from 241 Ss) for these 8 variables were developed and shown to approximate the proposed theoretical structure. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We report a case study for online self-support, which illustrates an advanced form of work modeling based on ontology technology. This new method enables a much earlier understanding of the design problem and promotes interdisciplinary design collaboration. A functional prototype was implemented for user testing and showed significant improvement in content discovery.
Can human beings relate to computer or television programs in the same way they relate to other human beings? Based on numerous psychological studies, this book concludes that people not only can but do treat computers, televisions, and new media as real people and places. Studies demonstrate that people are "polite" to computers; that they treat computers with female voices differently than "male" ones; that large faces on a screen can invade our personal space; and that on-screen and real-life motion can provoke the same physical responses. Using everyday language to engage readers interested in psychology, communication, and computer technology, Reeves and Nass detail how this knowledge can help in designing a wide range of media.
Unity and prototypicality are important visual aspects of product design. These design principles were operationalized by modifying line drawings of existing products. The results of four experiments provide evidence that these two factors positively affect aesthetic response. These effects were strongest when visual properties were the sole basis of judgment and when design variations were easily compared. However, they persisted when aesthetic aspects were combined with other product information and when comparing design features was difficult. The effect of unity was found to be superadditive, suggesting that it has a relational, "all-or-none" character. Finally, regression analyses show that direct effects of the design modifications on aesthetic response exist in addition to possible indirect effects that are mediated by perceived typicality. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.
In the latest decades, emotions have become an important research topic in all behavioral sciences, and not the least in advertising. Yet, advertising literature on how to measure emotions is not straightforward. The major aim of this article is to give an update on the different methods used for measuring emotions in advertising and to discuss their validity and applicability. We further draw conclusions on the relation between emotions and traditional measures of advertising effectiveness. We finally formulate recommendations on the use of the different methods and make suggestions for future research.
Two experiments demonstrated that self-perceptions and social perceptions may persevere after the initial basis for such perceptions has been completely discredited. In both studies subjects first received false feedback, indicating that they had either succeeded or failed on a novel discrimination task and then were thoroughly debriefed concerning the predetermined and random nature of this outcome manipulation. In experiment 2, both the initial outcome manipulation and subsequent debriefing were watched and overheard by observers. Both actors and observers showed substantial perseverance of initial impressions concerning the actors' performance and abilities following a standard "outcome" debriefing. "Process" debriefing, in which explicit discussion of the perseverance process was provided, generally proved sufficient to eliminate erroneous self-perceptions. Biased attribution processes that might underlie perserverance phenomena and the implications of the present data for the ethical conduct of deception research are discussed.
The physical form or design of a product is an unquestioned determinant of its marketplace success. A good design attracts consumers to a product, communicates to them, and adds value to the product by increasing the quality of the usage experiences associated with it. Nevertheless, the topic of product design is rarely, if ever, encountered in marketing journals. To bring needed attention to the subject of product design and enable researchers to better investigate design issues, the author introduces a conceptual model and several propositions that describe how the form of a product relates to consumers’ psychological and behavioral responses. After presenting this model, the author describes numerous strategic implications and research directions.
This review demonstrates that the physical attractiveness stereotype established by studies of person perception is not as strong or general as suggested by the often-used summary phrase what is beautiful is good. Although subjects in these studies ascribed more favorable personality traits and more successful life outcomes to attractive than unattractive targets, the average magnitude of this beauty-is-good effect was moderate, and the strength of the effect varied considerably from study to study. Consistent with our implicit personality theory framework, a substantial portion of this variation was explained by the specific content of the inferences that subjects were asked to make: The differences in subjects' perception of attractive and unattractive targets were largest for indexes of social competence; intermediate for potency, adjustment, and intellectual competence; and near zero for integrity and concern for others. The strength of the physical attractiveness stereotype also varied as a function of other attributes of the studies, including the presence of individuating information.
Seven experiments with 241 undergraduates tested predictions derived from D. E. Berlyne's (1971, 1974) theory of aesthetic preference. According to this theory, preference is an inverted-U function of arousal potential; the determinants of arousal potential are summed (an increase in the amount of one determinant leads to a decrease in the maximally preferred level of other determinants); and collative properties, such as complexity, are the most important predictors of preference. The experiments did not support these predictions. Preference was related to its determinants by monotonic or U-shaped functions. The predicted trade-off among the determinants of preference was not present. Semantic factors, not collative properties, were the most important determinants of preference.
A meta-analysis of single-item measures of overall job satisfaction (28 correlations from 17 studies with 7,682 people) found an average uncorrected correlation of .63 (SD = .09) with scale measures of overall job satisfaction. The overall mean correlation (corrected only for reliability) is .67 (SD = .08), and it is moderated by the type of measurement scale used. The mean corrected correlation for the best group of scale measures (8 correlations, 1,735 people) is .72 (SD = .05). The correction for attenuation formula was used to estimate the minimum level of reliability for a single-item measure. These estimates range from .45 to .69, depending on the assumptions made.
A meta-analysis of single-item measures of overall job satisfaction (28 correlations from 17 studies with 7,682 people) found an average uncorrected correlation of .63 (SD = .09) with scale measures of overall job satisfaction. The overall mean correlation (corrected only for reliability) is .67 (SD = .08), and it is moderated by the type of measurement scale used. The mean corrected correlation for the best group of scale measures (8 correlations, 1,735 people) is .72 (SD = .05). The correction for attenuation formula was used to estimate the minimum level of reliability for a single-item measure. These estimates range from .45 to .69, depending on the assumptions made.
This chapter describes the way in which usable systems can be designed. Usability is a combination of many factors, each of which is often developed independently. User-interface code is becoming an increasingly large percentage of the total system code. Standards are beginning to emerge for user interface design. Establishing standards for software aspects of the user interface is probably premature. There are lots of guidelines for a good system design. However, these are not enough for the design of good systems. One should at the beginning and throughout development focus on prospective users and their work. It is often heard that people buy computer systems for the functions in them. One is unlikely to figure out what the functions should be without talking with users. One should continuously measure each aspect of usability, and then iterate in a hill-climbing way toward a better system. All aspects of usability should begin evolving from the beginning and should be under one focus.
This chapter discusses the user's experience and evolution of usability engineering. Usability engineering starts with a commitment to action in the world. It seeks to capture user experience within a context situated in user work and in a form useful for engineering. Usability engineering provides operationally defined criteria so that usability objectives can be used to drive an efficient and productive engineering effort, and it can lead to production of systems that are experienced by users as usable and that serve as a basis for the next generation of systems. When a system is built and delivered to users, interaction with it would affect user experience and would shift the background against which users evaluate that system in comparison with other systems. Therefore, as systems are built that provide new functionality with new levels of usability, the expectations of users would shift so that the whole cycle should begin again.
This chapter summarizes a process of system design that, if followed, helps a person create usable computer systems for people—systems that are easy to learn, easy to use, contain the right functions, and are liked. There are four key points in this usability design process: early focus on users; empirical measurement; iterative design; and integrated design, where all aspects of usability evolve together from the start. This chapter reviews 20-30 informal methods to carry out these four points. Many of the methods can be used without extensive training in human factors. This chapter also summarizes how system design process is used to develop a new comprehensive software development system, called ITS. ITS was created to make it easier for developers to carry out this design process particularly incremental, iterative design. As a part of iteratively developing ITS, ITS was used to build serious applications, particularly multimedia ones, used by thousands and millions of users. This chapter describes these case studies, with emphasis upon the human factors methods used and the iterative, incremental approach.
Examined whether physically attractive stimulus persons, both male and female, are (a) assumed to possess more socially desirable personality traits than physically unattractive stimulus persons, and (b) expected to lead better lives (e.g., be more competent husbands and wives and more successful occupationally) than unattractive stimulus persons. Sex of Subject * Sex of Stimulus Person interactions along these dimensions also were investigated. Results with 30 male and 30 female undergraduates indicate a "what is beautiful is good" stereotype along the physical attractiveness dimension with no Sex of Judge * Sex of Stimulus interaction. Implications of such a stereotype on self-concept development and the course of social interaction are discussed.
B. Spinoza (1677 [1982]) suggested that all information is accepted during comprehension and that false information is then unaccepted. Subjects were presented with true and false linguistic propositions and, on some trials, their processing of that information was interrupted. As Spinoza's model predicted, interruption increased the likelihood that subjects would consider false propositions true but not vice versa (Study 1). This was so even when the proposition was iconic and when its veracity was revealed before its comprehension (Study 2). In fact, merely comprehending a false proposition increased the likelihood that subjects would later consider it true (Study 3). The results suggest that both true and false information are initially represented as true and that people are not easily able to alter this method of representation. Results are discussed in terms of contemporary research on attribution, lie detection, hypothesis testing, and attitude change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
[focus] on 1 aspect of attitude strength, namely the expressed extremity of the attitude / as 1 component of attitude strength, expressed extremity is likely to be correlated with other components, such that more extreme attitudes tend to be more subjectively important and more accessible / but just like the other components of attitude strength, extremity may result from particular processes and have particular consequences that are only partially shared with the other components of attitude strength
the effects to be explained / a general model of attitude formation, representation, and output / polarization of attitudes within this model [general effects of repetition on cognitive processes, the representation component, the computation component, the output component] / reexamining the studies of attitude polarization in light of our general account [repeated exposure and communication, repeated expression, thought devoted to the attitude object] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Demonstrates that the physical attractiveness stereotype established by studies of person perception is not as strong or general as suggested by the often-used summary phrase
what is beautiful is good. Although Ss in these studies ascribed more favorable personality traits and more successful life outcomes to attractive than unattractive targets, the average magnitude of this beauty-is-good effect was moderate, and the strength of the effect varied considerably from study to study. Consistent with the authors' implicit personality theory framework, a substantial portion of this variation was explained by the specific content of the inferences that Ss were asked to make: The differences in Ss' perception of attractive and unattractive targets were largest for indexes of social competence; intermediate for potency, adjustment, and intellectual competence; and near zero for integrity and concern for others. The strength of the physical attractiveness stereotype also varied as a function of other attributes of the studies, including the presence of individuating information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
[evidence suggests that] the perceiver's attitude plays an important role in how a stimulus is judged / consider how far one can extend this reasoning / at what point in the cognitive "stream" do attitudes begin to exert their influence / attitudes obviously affect judgmental processes / however, do they affect even more fundamental processes such as attention and perception
summarize two empirical projects relevant to this question / the first concerns perception and, in particular, the possibility that attitudes ready the individual to perceive attitude-consistent events / the second . . . concerns visual attention / review a series of experiments concerning what we refer to as the orienting value of attitudes—a tendency for attitude-evoking objects to automatically attract attention when they enter the visual field (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Interactive computer systems should be viewed as "socio-technical" systems whose acceptance is influenced by an interaction among characteristics of the individual users, the groups and organizations in which they are implemented, and the computer systems themselves. Four months after completing baseline questionnaires, new users of four computer-mediated communication systems (CMCS) answered follow-up questionnaires which included a number of items measuring subjective satisfaction. Factor analysis identified two primarily instrumental dimensions (satisfaction with the Interface and with system Performance), and two primarily social-emotional dimensions (Unexpressive---perceived inadequacy of the system for expressive, emotional, or personal communication---and Mode Problems with computer-mediated communication). The strongest correlates of Interface satisfaction are differences in system software and documentation, interacting with baseline attitudes and characteristics of the individual users. By contrast, the strongest correlates of the Unexpressive factor include such group-level variables as frequency of previous (off-line) communication with the group, and attitudes towards the group task. Thus to insure a successful implementation, managers must consider the "fit" between a CMCS and a particular work group.
In two experiments we examine how consumers are affected by a sequence composed of an initial product-failure experience followed by a success experience. Our interest is to assess how consumers' evaluation of the product and of their own performance change after the second experience. A preliminary experiment used hypothetical scenarios describing consumers' experiences with different products. In the main experiment, participants received actual hands-on experience with a Smith-Corona Personal Typewriter/Word Processor. A major result was that product evaluations could be as high following a failure-success sequence of experiences as following success alone. This was especially true with hands-on experiences. However, the main experiment showed that negative affect (frustration) expressed following an actual product failure experience remained even after a subsequent success. Marketing implications of these dual results are discussed.
HYPOTHESIZES THAT MERE REPEATED EXPOSURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO A STIMULUS OBJECT ENHANCES HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD IT. BY "MERE" EXPOSURE IS MEANT A CONDITION MAKING THE STIMULUS ACCESSIBLE TO PERCEPTION. SUPPORT FOR THE HYPOTHESIS CONSISTS OF 4 TYPES OF EVIDENCE, PRESENTED AND REVIEWED: (1) THE CORRELATION BETWEEN AFFECTIVE CONNOTATION OF WORDS AND WORD FREQUENCY, (2) THE EFFECT OF EXPERIMENTALLY MANIPULATED FREQUENCY OF EXPOSURE UPON THE AFFECTIVE CONNOTATION OF NONSENSE WORDS AND SYMBOLS, (3) THE CORRELATION BETWEEN WORD FREQUENCY AND THE ATTITUDE TO THEIR REFERENTS, AND (4) THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIMENTALLY MANIPULATED FREQUENCY OF EXPOSURE ON ATTITUDE. THE RELEVANCE FOR THE EXPOSURE-ATTITUDE HYPOTHESIS OF THE EXPLORATION THEORY AND OF THE SEMANTIC SATIATION FINDINGS WERE EXAMINED. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Three experiments were conducted to validate and replicate. in a different cultural setting. the results of a study by Kurosu and Kashimura [12] concerning the relationships between users’ perceptions of interface aesthetics and usability. The results support the basic tindings by Kurosu and Kashimura. Very high correlations were found between perceived aesthetics of the interface and a priori perceived ease of use of the system. Differences of magnitude between correlations obtained in Japan and in Israel suggest the existence of cross-cultural differences. but these were not in the hypothesized direction.
The consequences of information system failure become more acute as organizations continue to invest in information technology and application development. Being able to better predict IS failure before implementation of a system could facilitate changes in the information system that can lead to implementation success. The realism of user expectations has been suggested as one possible means of assessing the eventual success or failure of an IS. Cognitive dissonance theory was used to hypothesize the behavior and attitudes of end users having certain expectations of a system. This experiment investigates the association between unrealistic expectations with both users' perceptions (i.e., user satisfaction) and their performance with the IS (i.e., decision performance). A longitudinal experiment was performed in which the expectations of the subjects were manipulated to be unrealistically high, realistically moderate, or unrealistically low. The results suggest an association between realism of users' expectations and their perceptions but not their actual performance. Future research should be directed toward the development of an instrument to measure user expectations, as well as toward understanding the causes of unrealistic user expectations.
Some characteristics of the Information Age and the importance of human factors issues are outlined. Immediate questions for the next 7years or so are discussed, including nine substantive areas needing research (from a recent survey) and the development ...
Incl. app., bibliographical references, index, answers pp; 593-619