Alexandre N. Tuch

Visual complexity of websites: Effects on users' experience, physiology, performance, and memory

Visual complexity is an apparent feature in website design yet its effects on cognitive and emotional processing are not well understood. The current study examined website complexity within the framework of aesthetic theory and psychophysiological research on cognition and emotion. We hypothesized that increasing the complexity of websites would have a detrimental cognitive and emotional impact on users. In a passive viewing task (PVT) 36 website screenshots differing in their degree of complexity (operationalized by JPEG file size; correlation with complexity ratings in a preliminary study r=.80) were presented to 48 participants in randomized order. Additionally, a standardized visual search task (VST) assessing reaction times, and a one-week-delayed recognition task on these websites were conducted and participants rated all websites for arousal and valence. Psychophysiological responses were assessed during the PVT and VST. Visual complexity was related to increased experienced arousal, more negative valence appraisal, decreased heart rate, and increased facial muscle tension (musculus corrugator). Visual complexity resulted in increased reaction times in the VST and decreased recognition rates. Reaction times in the VST were related to increases in heart rate and electrodermal activity. These findings demonstrate that visual complexity of websites has multiple effects on human cognition and emotion, including experienced pleasure and arousal, facial expression, autonomic nervous system activation, task performance, and memory. It should thus be considered an important factor in website design.

Symmetry and aesthetics in website design: It's a man's business

In recent years the aesthetic appearance of user-interfaces has become a topic of increasing interest in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). At the same time, it is well known that there are gender-specific effects in HCI. The present study investigates the effect of web page symmetry by taking gender differences into account. A total of 60 people (30 male, 30 female) participated in a laboratory experiment, where 20 website startpages had to be rated regarding symmetry, intuitive beauty, classical and expressive aesthetics. Results show that vertical symmetry is an important factor in aesthetic website design. It has an impact on intuitive straightforward beauty appraisals and on classical and expressive aesthetics judgments. Asymmetrically designed web pages were considered to be less beautiful and achieved lower scores on the classical and expressive dimensions. Moreover, the study indicates that the symmetry effect only occurs among male participants: only men react unfavorably to asymmetrically designed websites, whereas womens judgments are not influenced by symmetry. These findings should be taken into consideration by website designers, especially when they aim to design for target audience consisting of a majority of a certain gender.

A systematic review of quantitative studies on the enjoyment of digital entertainment games

Enjoyment has been identified as a central component of the player experience (PX), but various, overlapping concepts within PX make it difficult to develop valid measures and a common understanding of game enjoyment. We conducted a systematic review of 87 quantitative studies, analyzing different operationalizations and measures of game enjoyment, its determinants, and how these were related to other components of PX, such as flow, presence and immersion. Results suggest that game enjoyment describes the positive cognitive and affective appraisal of the game experience, and may in part be associated with the support of player needs and values. Further, we outline that enjoyment is distinct from flow in that it may occur independently of challenge and cognitive involvement, and argue that enjoyment may be understood as the valence of the player experience. We conclude with a discussion of methodological challenges and point out opportunities for future research on game enjoyment.

Opportunities for odor: experiences with smell and implications for technology

Technologies for capturing and generating smell are emerging, and our ability to engineer such technologies and use them in HCI is rapidly developing. Our understanding of how these technologies match the experiences with smell that people have or want to have is surprisingly limited. We therefore investigated the experience of smell and the emotions that accompany it. We collected stories from 439 participants who described personally memorable smell experiences in an online questionnaire. Based on the stories we developed 10 categories of smell experience. We explored the implications of the categories for smell-enhanced technology design by (a) probing participants to envision technologies that match their smell story and (b) having HCI researchers brainstorm technologies using the categories as design stimuli. We discuss how our findings can benefit research on personal memories, momentary and first time experiences, and wellbeing.

Location matters, especially for non-salient features-An eye-tracking study on the effects of web object placement on different types of websites

Users have clear expectations of where web objects are located on a web page. Studies conducted with manipulated, fictitious websites showed that web objects placed according to user expectations are found faster and remembered more easily. Whether this is also true for existing websites has not yet been examined. The present study investigates the relation between location typicality and efficiency in finding target web objects in online shops, online newspapers, and company web pages. Forty participants attended a within-subject eye-tracking experiment. Typical web object placement led to fewer fixations and participants found target web objects faster. However, some web objects were less sensitive to location typicality, if they were more visually salient and conformed to user expectations in appearance. Placing web objects at expected locations and designing their appearance according to user expectations facilitates orientation, which is beneficial for first impressions and the overall user experience of websites.

Simple but Crucial User Interfaces in the World Wide Web: Introducing 20 Guidelines for Usable Web Form Design

Most websites use interactive online forms as the main contact point between users and website owners (e.g. companies, governmental institutions, ect.). Therefore, a proper design of such forms is crucial to allow smooth information exchange. It can be decisive on the success or failure of an online transaction. Users mostly visit a website with an intention that is related to the content of that site (e.g. purchasing an article, gathering information). Hence, they do not visit a website with the intention or goal of filling in a web form. Let us illustrate this with an online shopping example: Once users have chosen the items that they wish to buy, they want to finish their shopping as quickly, easily and safely as possible. But to successfully complete the shopping process users have to provide some personal data such as shipping address or credit card information. In the users perception, an online form may be perceived as a hurdle. There is evidence that unusable web forms lead to customers aborting the transaction prematurely, resulting in loss of profit (Wroblewski, 2008). To prevent such dropouts from the buying process, a revision of the form is necessary. A successful redesign of a suboptimal online form may result in an increased completion rate in the range of 10%-40% (Wroblewski, 2008). For instance, the eBay User Experience and Design Group reported that a redesign of the eBay registration form made a significant contribution to eBay’s business and user success (Herman, 2004). The World Wide Web contains a wide range of different web form design solutions for similar interface aspects and problems. Exemplarily, Figure 1 shows four different ways of implementing and communicating format restrictions to users. It can be seen, that even website developers of major companies choose very different ways to solve the same problems. This raises several important questions: Are these solutions equivalent or are there ways that lead to superior web forms in terms of an enhanced usability? Would it not be advantageous to use similar solutions for similar problems, so that predictability for users can be increased? Are there different solutions that may be used depending on the developer’s intentions? In the last years a growing body of research and guidelines have been published on how to make online forms more usable. They answer to a certain extent the questions mentioned

Linking objective design factors with subjective aesthetics

This study links objective design factors with subjective aesthetics.Each design factor affects the facets of subjective aesthetics in a different way.Structural factors have a great impact on simplicity, diversity and craftsmanship.Color factors have a great impact especially on colorfulness. The present study examines how objective design factors of a website are linked to different facets of subjective aesthetic perception. Five online experiments based upon the screenshots of real-existing websites with a total of N=194 participants were conducted to isolate and analyze the effects of two objective structural factors (vertical symmetry, visual complexity) and three objective color factors (hue, saturation, brightness) on the different facets of subjective aesthetic perception (simplicity, diversity, colorfulness, craftsmanship) measured with the Visual Aesthetics of Website Inventory (Moshagen & Thielsch, 2010). Although all investigated factors are apparent features in website design, their effects on different facets of subjective aesthetic perception are not yet well understood. Our results show that websites of high symmetry, low complexity, blue hue, medium brightness or medium and high saturation received the highest overall aesthetics ratings. Furthermore, data reveal that structural factors compared to color factors have a manifold and greater impact on the different facets of subjective aesthetic perception than the color factors. Both structural factors have a great impact on simplicity, diversity and craftsmanship whereas the color factors have a great impact especially on colorfulness. Only complexity affects all facets of subjective aesthetic perception. The other objective design factors had effects on specific facets. Our findings shed light on the relationship between objective and subjective factors of aesthetic perception and may help designers to systematically target specific facets of visual aesthetics.

The Role of Visual Complexity in Affective Reactions to Webpages: Subjective, Eye Movement, and Cardiovascular Responses

In this study, we tested whether the visual complexity (VC) of webpages influences viewers affective reactions. In a laboratory experiment, 48 students viewed 36 webpages varying in VC while subjective feelings, behavioral, and cardiovascular responses were recorded. Less complex webpages were associated with more positive affect, decreased eye movements (specifically in the first few seconds of viewing), a triphasic heart rate response, and increased finger pulse amplitude. Results suggest that affective responses to webpage viewing differ as a function of VC and that webpage displaying could be made adaptive to the users emotions.

Working towards usable forms on the worldwide web: optimizing multiple selection interface elements

If an interactive form in the worldwide web requires users to select multiple answers from a given list, this can be implemented in several ways. This paper discusses an empirical study with n = 106 participants, where two interface elements for choosing multiple answers (checkboxes and list boxes) were compared. Results showed that participants chose the same amount of options in both conditions but were faster and more satisfied using checkboxes. The time differences disappeared after several trials, revealing a learning effect for the list box element. As a conclusion, it can be recommended that website developers and online researchers should use checkboxes instead of list boxes for their online forms and questionnaires to enhance usability and user satisfaction--at least for a smaller number of options.

Does Herzberg's Notion of Hygienes and Motivators Apply to User Experience?

This article investigates Herzbergs [1959] notion of hygienes, factors contributing to dissatisfaction but not to satisfaction, and motivators, factors contributing to satisfaction but not to dissatisfaction, in the context of user experience (UX). Earlier work has theorized that the notion of hygienes and motivators applies to UX but has neither shown empirical evidence for this theory nor exemplified what such factors would look like in UX. We adapt Herzbergs methodology to analyze 303 events where users felt good or bad about their smartphone and derive factors that may work as hygienes or motivators. We identified technical quality and price as hygienes, and utility and convenience as motivators. These factors do not correspond to those mentioned as typical examples of hygienes and motivators in the UX literature (i.e., instrumental qualities such as usability for hygienes and non-instrumental qualities such as beauty for motivators). We discuss this discrepancy in the context of pragmatic and hedonic quality and psychological need fulfillment.