08292 Abstracts Collection -- The Study of Visual Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction

From 13.07. to 16.07.2008, the Dagstuhl Seminar 08292 ``The Study of Visual Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

"Why should I believe this?" Deciphering the qualities of credible online customer reviews

Online customer reviews have been shown to have a powerful impact on the sales of a given product or service. However, the qualities of a ‘credible’ online customer review are still subject to debate. Existing research has highlighted the potential influence of a range of factors on the credibility of an online customer review, but relies heavily on quantitative methods and a ‘top down’ approach. In turn, this can reduce our understanding of the influence of these factors into merely discerning whether one pre-determined factor is more influential than another is. This paper adopted a ‘bottom up’ thematic analysis of individual qualitative interviews with a purposeful sample of consumers who regularly utilised online customer reviews. The findings uncovered a range of factors that influenced the credibility of an online customer review that were attached to a reader’s personal experience and to the content of a specific review, and inferred the existence of a reciprocal relationship between the constructs of review helpfulness and review credibility

Perception and manipulation of game control

Humans have humorous conversations and interactions. Nowadays our real life existence is integrated with our life in social media, videogames, mixed reality and physical environments that sense our activities and that can adapt appearance and properties due to our activities. There are other inhabitants in these environments, not only human, but also virtual agents and social robots with which we interact and who decide about their participation in activities. In this paper we look at designing humor and humor opportunities in such environments, providing them with a sense of humor, and able to recognize opportunities to generate humorous interactions or events on the fly. Opportunities, made possible by introducing incongruities, can be exploited by the environment itself, or they can be communicated to its inhabitants

THE PARADOX OF SIMPLICITY: EFFECTS OF USER INTERFACE DESIGN ON PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCE OF INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS

This ongoing research project is concerned with people’s perceptions regarding simplicity and complexity of user interface (UI) design of interactive systems. Human-computer interaction (HCI) experts suggest that simplicity is a key factor in enhancing system usability. According to this view, simplicity enables users to achieve their goals efficiently and effectively, and by that to enhance their satisfaction. Recent voices in the HCI community, however, have observed that people actually prefer complex interfaces to simpler ones (e.g., Norman, 2007). We refer to the gap between the observed behavior and the advocated design guidelines as the paradox of simplicity: whereas simplicity supposedly enhances performance and helps users achieve their goals, people actually seem to prefer complex designs. In this paper we propose a theoretical framework for the study of the simplicity paradox. Our model suggests that simplicity and complexity are potent signifiers that carry direct and indirect meaning and determine people\u27s choice of a system. The analysis relates to four main system attributes: functionality, usability, aesthetics and symbolism. We suggest that individual, cultural and context variables serve as moderators in determining people’s preference of complex or simple interfaces

Using Ratings and Response Latencies to Evaluate the Consistency of Immediate Aesthetic Perceptions of Web Pages

Using explicit (subjective evaluations) and implicit (response latency) measures, this study replicated and extended the findings by Fernandes et al (2003), who found that immediate aesthetic impressions of web pages are remarkably consistent. Forty participants evaluated 50 web pages in two phases. The degree to which web pages were regarded, on average, as attractive after a very short exposure of 0.5 sec. was highly correlated with attractiveness ratings after an exposure of 10 seconds. Extreme attractiveness evaluations (both positive and negative) were faster than moderate evaluations, providing convergent evidence to the hypothesis of immediate impression. Overall, the results provide direct evidence in support of the premise that aesthetic impression of the IT artifacts are formed quickly. Indirectly, the results suggest that visual aesthetics can play an important role in users\u27 evaluations of the IT artifact

Lessons from Implementation of a Web Site for the Israeli Citizen\u27s Advice Bureau

Web-based services for the public raise some questions regarding the interaction between technology and social contexts in the public sector: Can the internet be harnessed to affect the flow of information from bureaucracy to the citizenry, making it two way rather than one? Are internet services just for yuppies? Will such services be just in English? Should public services on the internet expect to change linguistically, organizationally, conceptually, in response to the audiences they expect to serve? This paper, in an attempt to address such questions, presents a case study, about the web site of The Israeli Citizen Advice Bureau, a government agency that provides the public with information about rights, social benefits, government services, and civil obligations

Exploring the Aesthetic Effects of the Golden Ratio in the Design of Interactive Products

We conducted an experiment to test whether the use of the golden ratio as a design guideline in interactive products has aesthetic value, that is, whether it influences users’ aesthetic evaluation of the product and their preferences for it over other product of the same type. We studied two types of products (mobile phones and web pages), each was wireframed in two design versions and then manipulated systematically to form various width × height proportions, including the golden ratio. Each of ninety-one participants evaluated one design version of each product by means of pairwise comparisons of all proportions. The results support the golden ratio hypothesis regarding the mobile devices but not regarding the web page designs. We discuss possible explanations for these results

FASHION\TRENDS IN WEB DESIGN

In this paper we describe a preliminary, in-progress, research of fashion\trends in HCI. First, we present the motivation for this research, as this topic has not been methodically researched despite the accelerating pace and growing influence of fashion\trends in modern life. In order to provide appropriate theoretical background, we define and explain the fashion and trend phenomena using resources from multiple research disciplines such as trend, fashion, design research, sociology, psychology and economics. We have chosen to focus this research on web design trends; therefore we illustrate our approach with web design examples. We conclude with an outline of our research project, its goals and methods, and finally the potential implications and opportunities for future research

Tune in to your emotions: a robust personalized affective music player

The emotional power of music is exploited in a personalized affective music player (AMP) that selects music for mood enhancement. A biosignal approach is used to measure listeners’ personal emotional reactions to their own music as input for affective user models. Regression and kernel density estimation are applied to model the physiological changes the music elicits. Using these models, personalized music selections based on an affective goal state can be made. The AMP was validated in real-world trials over the course of several weeks. Results show that our models can cope with noisy situations and handle large inter-individual differences in the music domain. The AMP augments music listening where its techniques enable automated affect guidance. Our approach provides valuable insights for affective computing and user modeling, for which the AMP is a suitable carrier application