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SUMMARY:Aesthetics of Websites: The Formation of First Impressions and the
  Interplay Between Beauty and Usability
DTSTART:20150126T111500
DTEND:20150126T120000
DTSTAMP:20260916T043955Z
UID:27698c16d365c1902c3cf8113b168e268e7875d80318620c5ca897f1
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Alexandre Tuch\, University of Basel in Switzerland\nIEL S
 eminar - React Group\nWithin the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  and especially in the context of User Experience (UX) research\, the aest
 hetics of user interfaces has become a topic of major interest. Numerous s
 tudies showed that aesthetics positively affects the users’ experience w
 ith interactive products. This line of research produced two findings that
  are particularly remarkable and call for further clarification: (1) Users
  are able to form reliable attractiveness appraisals (i.e.\, first impress
 ion) of a website within a fraction of time so short as 50 ms. However\, i
 t is unclear how such aesthetic impressions are formed and which factors d
 ecide as to whether a website triggers positive or negative appraisals. (2
 ) Visually appealing websites are perceived as more usable than less appea
 ling sites regardless of their actual usability. However\, due to the lack
  of experimental studies manipulating aesthetics and usability as independ
 ent variables it remains unclear under which circumstances the aesthetics 
 of an interface influences perceived usability\, or vice versa.\nIn this t
 alk I will present two experimental studies that try clarifying above-ment
 ioned research issues. The first study investigates web design factors tha
 t shape user’s first impression. Our results reveal that the visual comp
 lexity and prototypicality of a website affect the users’ aesthetic appr
 aisals within very short time frames (between 17 and 50 ms). The second st
 udy examines the interplay between aesthetics and usability in an online s
 hopping scenario. Our findings show that the “what is beautiful is usabl
 e” notion\, which assumes that aesthetics enhances the perception of usa
 bility\, can be reversed under certain conditions. The findings will be di
 scussed in regard to their theoretical and practical relevance.\nBio: Alex
 andre Tuch is a post-doctoral researcher and leader of the HCI Research Gr
 oup at the Psychology Department (Division of Cognitive Psychology & Metho
 dology) of the University of Basel in Switzerland. He spent one year as a 
 post-doctoral researcher with the Human-Centered Computing (HCC) group at 
 the Computer Science Department of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark
 \, conducting research in the field of User Experience (UX). Alex holds a 
 M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Psychology from the University of Basel.\nHis pr
 imary research interest is User Experience (UX) with a focus on the interp
 lay between instrumental and non-instrumental qualities of interactive tec
 hnologies. Thereby he investigates how users form first impressions of web
 sites and how the visual appearance of an interface affects users’ perce
 ption of system qualities such as usability.
LOCATION:ME B10 http://plan.epfl.ch/?q=meb10
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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