Affective website design

Abstract

Although, today, website design still contains many variable design elements which strongly influence its design outcome, like browser usage, platforms, user preferences, window size, connection speed, computer speed, colour support, software support, and font support, the original design idea still plays an important role. Emotion is difficult to measure or evaluate. Designers need to understand its importance and how to measure emotion efficiently in order to undertake the subsequent design stage. Positive emotions are as important as negative ones-positive emotions are critical to learning, curiosity, and creative thought, and today research is turning toward this dimension (Norman, 2004b: 19). To understand users' negative emotions can supply a better solution for design problems. Both users' likes and dislikes are important when exploring the role of emotional design. The fieldwork consisted of two pilot tests (the initial pilot test-I. P. T. and the second pilot test-S. P. T. ), a website impression test (W. I. T. ), and an improved website impression test (I. W. I. T. ). The research methods involved Think-Aloud usability testing, Emotional Probes testing (EPs testing), and questionnaires. In addition, the evaluation method used a coding system and statistics. Triangulation was used in making consistent the process methods and evaluation methods. The research outcomes include a fashion website design reference model, an insurance website design reference model, and the website impression test system. Through conducting the fieldwork, the importance of emotional design can be identified in the website design field. The whole research process and research outcomes supply one solution for researchers and designers to predict users' emotions in design outcomes