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

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

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

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

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

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

Emotional Response to the Audio-visual Pattern Language of Film

In this paper, we evaluate a notation system for Audio-visual Patterns (AVP) that visualizes auditory and visual parameters of film. This system is the basis for a comparative analysis of the rhetorical structure and for predicting the emotional response of viewers of film. We conducted two experiments to test the prediction of the proposed AVP system by asking female viewers about their emotional responses to 10 selected TV commercials. The results indicate that the AVP system provides sound predictions regarding the arousal level of the viewers as the commercial unfolds

EXTERNAL VERSUS INTERNAL PERSPECTIVES IN DETERMINING A FIRM\u27S PROGRESSIVE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The use of IT in a firm can vary depending on a number of factors such as atop executive\u27s perceptions and the firm\u27s industry. In this study, variables representing the organization\u27s external and internal characteristics were examined to determine whether they affect the firm\u27s progressive use of IT and, if so, which has the strongest effect. A questionnaire was mailed to the Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers of 300 small and medium-sized publicly-traded companies. Results indicate that internal factors (Chief Executive Officer\u27s perception of IT importance and the information intensity of the product), more than the external factors, influenced the firm\u27s progressive use of IT