Aesthetic-usability Effect

[Guest aquauno]

'Aesthetic designs look easier to use than less aesthetic designs'

 

Do you agree? It obviously depends heavily upon product type... but generally....?

 

This would reaaly help me with a journal I am writing..

[Guest CheckMate]

Yes, a product, any product can be developed from a perspective of visual logic. The designer can consider how the product will be approached and develop a visual logic and hierachy that talks to the user making it intuitive to understand, navigate and use - the product expresses its function!

[Guest aquauno]

That suggests the product to be more usable through its design though. I am referring more specifically to positive relationships between product and user, garnered by aesthetic appeal, that make the user more likely to forgive any short comings in usability.

 

Perhaps the user wanting the product to work well because they admire it as an object has a part to play? Maybe they like it so much they don't mind if it is outperformed by less beautiful products?

[Guest Shaggy]

I believe that more aesthetic designs can have a phycological affect on the user, making them reason that because that product is more beautiful it will be better to use.

 

I dont personally believe though that a better looking product always looks easier to use.

Look at Stack's lemon squeezer, looks great, but does it look easier to use than a conventional lemon squeezer?

If the product looks easier to use due to it being a simpler design then wouldn't this be more Ockhams Razor?

[Guest CheckMate]

I am referring more specifically to positive relationships between product and user, garnered by aesthetic appeal, that make the user more likely to forgive any short comings in usability.

 

What I am saying is that any product designed to be usable can be developed using a process acting on visual logic and hierachy. This process will produce an aesthetic that inspires usability and makes the product look easier to use. Who says that functional things can't be beautiful things? On the other hand a product's aesthetics could be developed with an arbitrary goal in mind such as totally obscuring the function or making it express a chosen emotion. Any aesthetic that does not serve the purpose of usablity (and a product can be both usable and emotional) will not make a product look easier to use, only product displaying visual logic look as easy to use as they can, while others may partially look easy to use by fluke or not at all.

 

And yes products that look well built, quality, resolved, are generally considered to peform better. Some products are charlatans looking better than they perform because the company cares more about profit and marketing than they do quality and the customer. Some people are easily swayed by aesthetics while others are more shrewd and can discern a product that just looks good from one that works well. But in general i believe there is a correlation between products looking well made and designed, quality and resolved,... and performing the same and people generally asume this principle when purchasing products. Its just common sense.

[admin 22]

Check out

http://www.productdesignhub.com/videos/17-...makes-you-happy

 

Donald Norman states that good looking products work better. You might be interested to read the philosophy behind that thought in his book 'Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things'

[Guest aquauno]

You use the Juicy Salif as an example. Its beauty is its strength and its inability to make juice efficiently is its weakness, however, we already know this due to experience. If you didn't already know that it was bad at juicing, would your initial opinion be different?

 

How about a high end supercar, lets say a Ferrari Modena. It is undoubtedly more beautiful than a Chrysler Pt Cruiser but it is harder to use. But that is because I know what they both are, their respective power levels etc. If I had just been introduced to the concept of the motor vehicle and was perceiving which was easier to use, would my opinion still be the same?

 

I liked the video by the way, thank you kindly

[Guest c.zhao]

We could argue a product showing great maturity in usability also follows aesthetics, though not vice versa. Taking a comsumer/end-user's perspective, usability is invisible before you start using a product, especially in case of those sophisticated ones consisting of several (user) interfaces.

 

Less people would argue Motorola RAZR series is bad looking (in terms of the physical appearance). The company did enjoy a sale record of more than 110 million units, and subsequently came up with a bunch of handsets with shiny "shell" without paying much attention to consumer's concerns (including those of usability) as recently Mr Greg Brown admitted to Business Week. Specifically, despite an eye-catching industrial design part, the GUI of KRZR 1, however, was horrible, and after you put it into use, together with the nicely crafted P(hysical) UI, it didn't help the phone to meet a good level of usability.

[jags111 0]

Product Aesthetics- User centered Emotive design- Usability and aesthetics are well researched and a lot of articles highlighting the same are on the net.

Some links worth looking at:

 

Don Norman's JND

Emotional design

PRODUCT DESIGN,SEMANTICS AND EMOTIONAL

PD,SEMANTICS......

Desirability Design

 

Some of the articles are deep and through with their approach to value coding the aesthetics and arriving at conclusions that could be a measure and evaluation to the aesthetic experience in Design.

[Guest RachaelO]

I agree with the principle that aesthetic designs look easier to use than less aesthetic ones. I think the notion of aesthetics is vital in attracting people to the design in the first place. This is similiar to the attractiveness bias principle, where they state that attractive people are more likely to be more successful than none-attractive people. In design terms, aesthetics will enhance usability of the product.

 

I believe aesthetics help people form emotions with the design, therefore creating a relationship or trust with the design which might encourage persistance of use or willingness to understand even when the function isn't actually simpler than a non aesthetic design.

[Guest jOEjoe]

'Aesthetic designs look easier to use than less aesthetic designs'

 

Do you agree? It obviously depends heavily upon product type... but generally....?

 

This would reaaly help me with a journal I am writing..

 

 

Hi, I am very interested in the topic of the journal you are writting or have written. May I have a read of it please?

Thanks