Aesthetic appeal versus usability: Implications for user satisfaction

1. Aesthetic appeal versus usability:Implications for user satisfaction Gitte Lindgaard & Cathy Dudek Carleton HOTLab Ottawa, Canada

3. Satisfaction • …is the poor cousin of usability • Satisfaction defined as attitudinal • Avoid negative feelings • Measured in rating scales • Outcomes, summaries • We are interested in the experiential • Process • Construct

4. One site tested was veryhigh in appeal and very low in usability • Appeal = reliable ‘wow’ effect • Usability: • Heuristic evaluation found 157 unique problems • 121 of these were severe • A subset of these were exposed in the 8 usability tasks

5. Research question • Does the first impression persist after completing usability tasks? • Or do users change their mind after encountering serious usability problems?

6. Measures • Satisfaction: proportion of positive statements in • Perceived usability • Perceived aesthetics • emotion • likeability • expectation (Lindgaard & Dudek, 2001)

7. Issues raised here • Task demands • Do users who anticipate a usability test pay more attention to usability problems when first browsing a site than users who do not expect a test? • If so, perceived usability scores will be lower for the former than for the latter

8. Experimental design

9. Findings • Subjects completed, on average, 3.8 of 8 tasks successfully • no subject completed all the tasks • no task was completed by all subjects So, it is safe to conclude that usability levels were very low

10. Findings: perceived usability 33% 31% 13% Site was not perceived as usable by either group Site was seento be less usable after than before the test

11. Findings: perceived aesthetics 91% 87% 91% Site was perceived as beautiful by both groups Site remained beautiful after the usability test

12. Findings: emotion 87% 66% 20% The ratio of positive:negative emotion statements was lower for the test group both before and after the test.

13. Findings: likeability 79% 49% 25% The ratio of positive:negative likeability statements was Lower for the test group both before and after the test

14. Findoings: expectation 64% 11% 5% The ratio of positive:negative expectation statements was Very much lower for the test group before and after The test

15. Findings: satisfaction 66% 51% 25% Satisfaction appears to be determined by several factors

16. First Impressions • The first impression apparently rests on aesthetics • The perception of beauty persists, but • Perceived usability, likeability and expectation change after facing serious usability problems

17. First impression • Formed in an instant (3-5 msec) • Based on changes in arousal levels (Berlyne, 1971; 1972) • Evoked via the amygdala, not via the hypothalamus (Damasio, 2000; LeDoux, 1994;1996; Goleman, 1996) • Can be overridden by pre-exposure decision(Epstein, 1997) • Is difficult to change – confirmation bias (Doherty, Mynatt & Tweney, 1977)

18. One question is… • Does emotion precede cognition… (Zajonc, 1980; Bornstein, 1992) • …or is it the other way around? (Epstein, 1997) • I.e. are first impressions ‘what my body tells me to feel’, or are they ‘what my brain tells me to think’?

19. Issues raised here • Confirmation bias • If the first impression drives satisfaction, it should not change after usability test • If usability drives satisfaction, it should change after usability test • and it should vary between high- and low-usability sites

20. Experimental design • Group 1 (n = 40): Browse  interview/ratings • Group 2 (n = 40): Browse  interview/ratings  usability test  interview/ratings • 2 e-commerce sites tested • Scores: • (a) proportion of positive statements • (b) WAMMI (Kirakowski et al. 1998)

21. Results: Satisfaction Mean satisfaction scores before & after test Main effect, before/after (p < .001); main effect for web site (p ,< .05)

22. Perceived usability Mean perceived usability before/after test Main effect before/after (p < .001); main effect for web site (p < .001)

23. Aesthetics Mean aesthetics score before/after test No significant effects

24. Satisfaction, before test only Mean satisfaction scores, first interview Main effect for web site (p < .05); main effect for subject-group (p < .05)

25. Perceived usability before test Mean perceived usability scores before test only Main effect for web site (p < .001)

26. Conclusion • Confirmation bias • Aesthetics scores taken on their own did not differ before the test • ..and they did not change after test • Confirmation bias on the aesthetics dimension • But • Satisfaction scores decreased after the test • Perceived usability scores decreased • No confirmation bias on overall satisfaction or on usability

27. Conclusion • Task demands • Lower satisfaction scores for subjects expecting a usability test than for browsing-only subjects suggest that task demands do affect attention to usability • Subjects are sensitive to actual usability levels • As evidenced both in satisfaction scores and in perceived usability scores

28. Conclusion • So, satisfaction appears to be driven partly by actual usability • Aesthetics judgments appear to be independent of perceived usability

29. Next steps • Currently developing satisfaction scales that enable developers to pinpoint where to improve their sites to increase user satisfaction

30. So, now to aesthetics • Gary Fernandes MA thesis: • 125 sites collected, all of unknown companies • Preliminary study, n = 22 • Selected 25 best and 25 worst sites • N = 30 • Viewed sites for 500 msec, then rated visual appeal in two rounds

31. Very Unattractive Very Attractive Measurement scale

38. Appeal ratings, study 1

39. Appeal ratings, study 2

40. Visual appeal ratings, study 1 vs study 2

41. Conclusion • Aesthetics judgments are made very quickly • They are highly robust • New results show that they persist even when subjects are able to inspect the home page for an unlimited period of time

42. Next steps • Expose stimuli for 40 msec • Collect genres of sites • Evolve tool enabling companies to test their own web site against others