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This chapter is from the book 

This chapter is from the book

Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User ExperiencesSeductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User ExperiencesSeductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences

Learn More Buy

Stitching it all together

For simplicity, I’ve presented two separate arguments for the value of aesthetics: one focused on cognitive benefits, the other citing how aesthetics influence affect.

But there’s another bit of information I saved for last.

Recent studies of emotions are finding that we can’t actually separate cognition from affect. Separate studies in economics and in neuroscience are proving that:

“affect, which is inexplicably linked to attitudes, expectations and motivations, plays a significant role in the cognition of product interaction
the perception that affect and cognition are independent, separate information processing systems is flawed.”*

In other words, how we think cannot be separated from how we feel. At all times, we are evaluating (affect) and interpreting (cognition) the world around us.

This raises some interesting questions—especially in the area of decision making. In short, our rational choices aren’t so rational (something we’ll talk about in Section Three). From studies on choice to first impressions, neuroscience is exploring how the brain works—and it’s kind of scary. We’re not as in charge of our decisions as we’d like to believe.

Consider what you’re doing with your interfaces to speak to people’s emotions. Industrial product design, automobile manufacturing, and other more mature industries get this—with tools such as Kano modeling that have been used for decades (see Chapter 24). But user interface development is still catching up on what these other disciplines already know: the most direct way to influence a decision or perception is through the emotions.

So, is “pretty design” important?

When you consider application design and development, how do you think of visual design? Is it a skin that adds some value—a layer on top of the core functionality? Or is this beauty something more?

In the early 1900s, “form follows function” became the mantra of modern architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright changed this phrase to “form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union,” using nature as the best example of this integration.

The more we learn about people, and how our brains process information, the more we see the truth of that phrase: form and function aren’t separate. If form exists independently of function, and we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate elements, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.

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“Do users want applications that work, or applications that can wrap themselves into funny shapes? I’m sure it looks really whizzy in demos, but come on, we’re just trying to give users applications that help them do their jobs.”

“The beauty of the Web lies in its function, not its form, and I would rather that my sites attract attention because they are widely useful and usable than because they are pretty.”

“It doesn’t matter how pretty your site is or how many bells and whistles you have. While a high-quality site is important, the majority of people today value usability more than good looks or fanciness.”

“The site doesn’t need to look good, it just needs to be easy to use.”

While sentiments like these may be accurate, they’re inconsistent with the way humans respond to visual stimuli. The distinction between how something looks and how it works is somewhat artificial.

Reality Check!

This chapter was largely an argument for visual aesthetics in interactive environments. However, none of this should be taken as an argument against basic usability and usefulness. The most attractive site in the world will fail if it doesn’t deliver on basic promises or is too difficult to use.

If adding more images adds significantly to the load time, this will detract from the overall experience. If a fancy-looking title bar confuses people into thinking it’s clickable, that’s a problem. If a really nice layout means your content will be difficult to read on a mobile device, that’s a serious consideration.

As interaction designers, we make things people use. We have to consider the people, the activities, and the context of these interactions. And while there are certainly plenty of patterns and conventions we can fall back on, every project presents new and unique challenges. There is rarely a clear-cut way of doing things (and I’d be wary of anyone saying otherwise). What works in one situation may fail miserably in another, and we often have to prioritize one thing at the expense of another. Agencies tend to value branding and identity over all else. IT departments often see visual design as an afterthought. Usability tests focus on functionality, efficiency, and task completion, but rarely measure whether or not the experience was actually enjoyable.

Design, in a general sense, is largely about making difficult decisions. “If we do x, will it detract from y?” Sometimes it’s about finding the delicate balance. Sometimes it’s about a trade-off. Other times it’s a prioritization. The key is to be clear about the end goals of the project, and then make decisions accordingly.

My aim with this section is to elevate the role of aesthetics in our functional conversations, to provide an objective way to balance aesthetic considerations and traditional (functional) considerations. In doing so, I’m hoping people can make more informed and less-biased judgments. Aesthetics are but one aspect of the overall user experience. But they should be taken as seriously as reliability, uptime, or speed. By shifting the conversation to perceptions, judgments, and behavior, we can make informed design decisions, whether for or against a particular choice.

Since entering the field of user experience design (UX) more than a decade ago, I’ve witnessed the constant tension between usability engineers, development teams, designers (with different levels of experience), business folks, marketing groups, and others. Each has something quite valuable to add to the equation. But, it’s frustrating when we don’t value one another’s contributions or understand how to orchestrate these different interests to work together to create value for both business and customers.

Aesthetics are only one consideration. However, much is lost by isolating them as an afterthought or a separate consideration. I think it’s more accurate to think of aesthetics as a key ingredient in a recipe, as opposed to the icing on the cake.

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