Meinald T. Thielsch

Facets of visual aesthetics

Visual aesthetics has been shown to critically affect a variety of constructs such as perceived usability, satisfaction, and pleasure. Given the importance of visual aesthetics in human-computer interaction, it is vital that it is adequately assessed. The present research aimed at providing a precise operational definition and to develop a new measure of perceived visual aesthetics of websites. Construction of the Visual Aesthetics of Website Inventory (VisAWI) was based on a comprehensive and broad definition of visual aesthetics so that the resulting instrument would completely describe the domain of interest. Four interrelated facets of perceived visual aesthetics of websites were identified and validated in a series of seven studies. Simplicity and Diversity have repeatedly been treated as formal parameters of aesthetic objects throughout the history of empirical aesthetics, Colors are a critical property of aesthetic objects, and Craftsmanship addresses the skillful and coherent integration of the relevant design dimensions. These four facets jointly represent perceived visual aesthetics, but are still distinguishable from each other and carry unique meaning. The subscales contained in the VisAWI demonstrate good internal consistencies. Evidence for the convergent, divergent, discriminative, and concurrent validity of the VisAWI is provided. Overall, the present research suggests that the VisAWI appears to be a sound measure of visual aesthetics of websites comprising facets of both practical and theoretical interest.

User Evaluation of Websites: From First Impression to Recommendation

Content, usability, and aesthetics are core constructs in users’ perception and evaluation of websites, but little is known about their interplay in different use phases. In a first study web users (N=330) stated content as most relevant, followed by usability and aesthetics. In study 2 tests with four websites were performed (N=300), resulting data were modeled in path analyses. In this model aesthetics had the largest influence on first impressions, while all three constructs had an impact on first and overall impressions. However, only content contributed significantly to the intention to revisit or recommend a website. Using data from a third study (N=512, 42 websites), we were able to replicate this model. As before, perceived usability affected first and overall impressions, while content perception was important for all analyzed website use phases. In addition, aesthetics also had a small but significant impact on the participants’ intentions to revisit or recommend.

Spatial frequencies in aesthetic website evaluations--explaining how ultra-rapid evaluations are formed.

This study investigates how aesthetic website evaluations, especially those formed after very brief presentations, depend on visual information that is encoded in low- or high-spatial frequencies. A total of 92 participants took part in the experiment. The study used a 3 × 3 mixed design in which presentation time (50, 500 and 10000 ms) and spatial filtering (low-pass filtered, high-pass filtered and unfiltered stimuli) were manipulated. First, we replicate prior results from online studies of high- and low-spatial frequencies. Second, we confirm a prediction from neurocognitive models that only low-spatial frequencies are relevant to aesthetic judgements in ultra-rapid presentation modes. Third, we demonstrate that stimulus repetitions lead to an overestimation of the importance of ultra-rapid stimulus presentations. Taken together, our results highlight the utility of neurocognitive models of visual processing to explain the rapid aesthetic evaluation of websites. Practitioner Summary: Using neurocognitive models we present an approach to explain how aesthetic impressions are formed. We show that ultra-rapid judgements are connected with low- but not with high-spatial frequencies, which are neurologically processed in different visual pathways. Furthermore we identify possible methodological problems in previous studies of ultra-rapid website perception.

A short version of the visual aesthetics of websites inventory

The present paper addresses a need for a brief assessment instrument to measure perceived visual aesthetics of websites. A short version of the Visual Aesthetics of Websites inventory (VisAWI; Moshagen and Thielsch 2010) called VisAWI-S was developed and evaluated in three studies comprising 1673 participants in total. The results indicate that the VisAWI-S is a reliable measure that captures a single dimension of perceived visual aesthetics and provides a good approximation to the full-length version. Convergent validity was established by a strong relationship to overall appeal. Evidence for divergent validity was obtained by weaker correlations to perceived usability, pragmatic quality and quality of content as well as by absence of a significant correlation to participants’ mood. In addition to this, the VisAWI-S was found to be substantially related to the intention to revisit a website. Overall, the results indicate that the VisAWI-S may gainfully be employed to measure perceived visual aesthetics of websites when assessment times must be kept to a minimum.

Expected usability is not a valid indicator of experienced usability

Usability is a core construct of website evaluation and inherently defined as interactive. Yet, when analysing first impressions of websites, expected usability, i.e., before use, is of interest. Here we investigate to what extend ratings of expected usability are related to (a) experienced usability, i.e., ratings after use, and (b) objective usability measures, i.e., task performance. Furthermore, we try to elucidate how ratings of expected usability are correlated to aesthetic judgments. In an experiment, 57 participants submitted expected usability ratings after the presentation of website screenshots in three viewing-time conditions (50, 500, and 10,000 ms) and after an interactive task (experienced usability). Additionally, objective usability measures (task completion and duration) and subjective aesthetics evaluations were recorded for each website. The results at both the group and individual level show that expected usability ratings are not significantly related either to experienced usability or objective usability measures. Instead, they are highly correlated with aesthetics ratings. Taken together, our results highlight the need for interaction in empirical website usability testing, even when exploring very early usability impressions. In our study, user ratings of expected usability were no valid proxy neither for objective usability nor for experienced website usability. Subjects Human–Computer Interaction, World Wide Web and Web Science

E-recruiting and fairness: the applicant's point of view

More and more companies currently recruit online, partly because of cost savings and competitive pressure, and partly because it is the best way to reach their target group of applicants. In our study, applicants’ perceptions of procedural fairness were examined in e-recruiting contexts. Using an adapted form of the Social Process Questionnaire on Selection, we found that 1,373 participants’ expectations regarding fairness were mediocre and always lower than the perceived importance of five procedural fairness aspects. Based on an experimental manipulation, we showed that feedback was particularly important in online application procedures, whereas participation had smaller effects. Furthermore, participants tend to rate procedural fairness for offline application procedures as fairer than for online procedures although they reported generally positive experiences with online applications in the past. Based on our results, we discuss practical implications and limitations.

Effects of Different Website Designs on First Impressions, Aesthetic Judgements and Memory Performance after Short Presentation

The current study investigates how different types of company website designs influence first impressions, aesthetic evaluations, and memory performance. We implemented an online study with a between-subjects design to examine differences between three design categories identified by ten experts in a pretest: SCOFA (strong colours of one colour family), LAPIC (large pictures), and SAPAT (same amount of pictures and text). The data of 458 participants (52.2% female) reveal that a) after an exposure time of five seconds, response times for website-related attributes differ between the categories, b) LAPIC and SAPAT are perceived as more aesthetic than SCOFA, c) memory performance is best on SAPAT sites. These results underline the importance of first impressions of a site’s appearance and provide practical guidance for web designers by showing what users associate with certain designs, which designs they prefer, and which sites are the most memorable.

Electrophysiological correlates of aesthetic processing of webpages: a comparison of experts and laypersons

We investigated whether design experts or laypersons evaluate webpages differently. Twenty participants, 10 experts and 10 laypersons, judged the aesthetic value of a webpage in an EEG-experiment. Screenshots of 150 webpages, judged as aesthetic or as unaesthetic by another 136 participants, served as stimulus material. Behaviorally, experts and laypersons evaluated unaesthetic webpages similarly, but they differed in their evaluation of aesthetic ones: experts evaluated aesthetic webpages as unaesthetic more often than laypersons did. The ERP-data show main effects of level of expertise and of aesthetic value only. There was no interaction of expertise and aesthetics. In a time-window of 110–130 ms after stimulus onset, aesthetic webpages elicited a more negative EEG-amplitude than unaesthetic webpages. In the same time window, experts had more negative EEG-amplitudes than laypersons. This patterning of results continued until a time window of 600–800 ms in which group and aesthetic differences diminished. An interaction of perceiver characteristics and object properties that several interactionist theories postulate was absent in the EEG-data. Experts seem to process the stimuli in a more thorough manner than laypersons. The early activation differences between aesthetic and unaesthetic webpages is in contrast with some theories of aesthetic processing and has not been reported before.

Facets of Website Content

Content is of primary importance in the World Wide Web. In particular, subjective perceptions of content are known to influence a variety of user evaluations, thereby altering attitudes and behavioral outcomes. Thus, it is essential that individually experienced facets of content can be adequately assessed. In a series of seven studies, we create, validate, and benchmark a measure for users’ subjective view on web content. In the first six studies, a total of 3106 participants evaluated a sum of 60 websites. The resulting Web-CLIC questionnaire is a 12-item measure based on prior research on web content. It encloses four main facets of users’ content experience: clarity, likeability, informativeness, and credibility – jointly representing a general factor subjective content perception. Very high internal consistencies and high short- to medium-term retest reliabilities are demonstrated. Strong evidence for construct validity in terms of factorial, convergent, divergent, discriminative, concurrent, experimental, and predictive validity is found. In a seventh study, encompassing 7379 ratings on 120 websites, benchmarks for 10 different content domains and optimal cut points are provided. Overall, the present research suggests that the Web-CLIC is a sound measure of subjective content perception of both practical and theoretical benefit.

Reliabilities of mental rotation tasks: limits to the assessment of individual differences.

Mental rotation tasks with objects and body parts as targets are widely used in cognitive neuropsychology. Even though these tasks are well established to study between-groups differences, the reliability on an individual level is largely unknown. We present a systematic study on the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of individual differences in mental rotation tasks comparing different target types and orders of presentations. In total n = 99 participants (n = 63 for the retest) completed the mental rotation tasks with hands, feet, faces, and cars as targets. Different target types were presented in either randomly mixed blocks or blocks of homogeneous targets. Across all target types, the consistency (split-half reliability) and stability (test-retest reliabilities) were good or acceptable both for intercepts and slopes. At the level of individual targets, only intercepts showed acceptable reliabilities. Blocked presentations resulted in significantly faster and numerically more consistent and stable responses. Mental rotation tasks—especially in blocked variants—can be used to reliably assess individual differences in global processing speed. However, the assessment of the theoretically important slope parameter for individual targets requires further adaptations to mental rotation tests.