Aesthetic-usability effect
Attractive designs tend to be judged easier to use before people have used them, and that first impression forms in a fraction of a second.
Three of the eight page areas.
It also applies sitewide, on every page. See everything at work on Homepage pages
Four ways to use it, and one to avoid.
- Use quality photography.
- Keep the visual design consistent.
- Keep the first screen clean and uncluttered.
- Make the site easy to use, because poor usability drags down how attractive it seems.
- Avoid: relying on good looks to rescue a site that is hard to use.
Beauty and usability ratings correlate, but in a shop test looks didn’t change perceived usability.
In an online shop experiment, poor usability lowered beauty ratings, but looks did not change perceived usability.
Rated beauty and rated usability correlated (r = .59 in Kurosu and Kashimura), and Tractinsky and colleagues found looks still shaped usability ratings after use. Appeal was judged within 50ms. But in an online shop experiment (80 people) looks did not change perceived usability, while poor usability lowered beauty ratings. A meta-analysis of 25 studies by Thielsch and colleagues found attractive interfaces improved actual task performance only slightly (g = 0.12).
Five sources, each checked.
Last reviewed
Good looks do not rescue a site that is hard to use, and heavy imagery slows pages down.
This is simply a pointer to check, not legal advice. Seek legal advice before you put this principle into action.