Usability, aesthetics andemotions How usability and aesthetics affect theperception of one another, as well asemotions when interacting with websites

Ezgi Sener

Student

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Spring 2014

Master thesis in cognitive science, 30 ECTS

Cognitive science program, 180 ECTS

Supervisor: Guy Madison, PhD

USABILITY, AESTHETICS AND EMOTIONS; HOW USABILITY ANDAESTHETICS AFFECT PERCEPTION OF ONE ANOTHER, AS WELL ASEMOTIONS WHEN INTERACTING WITH WEBSITES

Ezgi Sener

Usability, aesthetics and emotions are the main features that influenceuser experience. How usability and aesthetics affect the perception of eachother has been the topic of several studies. Previous studies did notshowed consistent results and lacked manipulation. A majority of themincluded two levels of usability and aesthetics (high and low). Given thatusability and aesthetics might affect the perception of each other, it isdesirable to compare more than just two levels, which was done in thepresent study. Three levels of usability and aesthetics were applied in amodel website aimed for tourists. It was shown that higher usabilityincreased perceived aesthetics and that higher aesthetics increasedperceived usability. Emotional reactions were found not to differ towardsusability and aesthetics, however different levels lead to different levelof emotion reaction.

Användbarhet, estetik, och emotioner är de huvudsakliga egenskaper sominfluerar forskning av användarupplevelser, på engelska kallat userexperience. Flera studier har undersökt hur användbarhet och estetikpåverkar perceptionen av varandra. Tidigare studier har inte visat på någrakonsekventa resultat och hade bristande manipulationer. En majoritet avdessa studier inkluderade två nivåer av användbarhet, och två av estetik(hög och låg nivå). Givet att användbarhet och estetik eventuellt påverkarperceptionen av varandra är det önskvärt att jämföra mer än endast tvånivåer. Tre nivåer av användbarhet och tre av estetik inkorporerades i enprototyphemsida som vände sig till turister. Resultaten visade att högreanvändbarhet ökade upplevd estetik, och att högre estetik ökade upplevdanvändbarhet. Emotionella reaktioner befanns inte skilja sig motanvändbarhet eller estetik, men olika nivåer leder till olika grad avemotionella reaktioner.

One of the main aims of human-computer interaction (HCI)studies is to assure that people have good experiences withinformation technology. Since the 1980s, usability has been the

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main concern when developing interactive systems. Aestheticsand emotions have recently started to be mentioned in HCI,which are undeniably important aspects that influence theusers’ interaction with a product and framing the concept ofuser experience. Several studies have looked at how usability andaesthetics affect perception of each other, but several issuesremain uncharted.

Usability

The concept of usability is almost as old as humanity.Vitruvius in the 1st century BC is considered to be the firstone to talk about usability. Usability also takes it roots fromthe military and has been used in World War I and World War IIwhere machines were designed to fit every person (Shackel,1997). The concept started to be mentioned in the world ofcomputers in the early 1980s. Usability is the quality and easeof use of an interactive system. There are several definitionsof usability and the definitions have changed over the years,but that of the International Organization for Standardization(ISO) is the most widely used; “Usability is the extent to which a productcan be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiencyand satisfaction in a specified use of context” (1998, 9241:11).Effectiveness refers to the degree the system allows users toaccurately and completely finish the task. Efficiency refers tothe time and effort it takes for users to complete the task.Satisfaction refers to what users think about the ease of useof the system.

Mental models are an important concept for usability.Mental models were first mentioned by Claik (1943) who arguedthat the mind creates “small scale models” of reality. Incognitive science, the term means internal scale modelrepresentations of external life. People form mental models bytheir prior experiences, perception and problem-solvingstrategies (Markham, 1999). For HCI, mental models are beliefsabout how a system should work. The designer has a mental modelof how the system should work and implements it in the system.The user on the other hand creates a mental model of how thesystem works in his or her interaction with the system (Norman,1988). Norman (1988) defines the design model, the user’s modeland the system image (see Figure 1). The design model refersto the designer’s idea of how the system should work, and his

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implementation of his mental model to the system, while theuser model refers to the user’s mental model of how the systemworks that is formed after interacting with the system, and thesystem model refers to the actual way the system works. Thedesigner aims to match his or her mental model with the user’smental model. This can be problematic since most of the timethe designer communicates with the user through the systemimage. To bridge the gap between the user and the system,either the designer can design the system with the users’mental model and psychological needs in mind, or the user canrearrange his or her mental model of how the system should workaccording to the system.

Figure 1: Norman’s (1998) mental model (Taken from Soegaard, 2013)

After having dominated HCI for a long time, many researchersand practitioners have begun to mention some shortcomings ofonly focusing on usability. Although usability is important, itis not the only feature that makes a system preferred. Dillon(2011) argues that it is not that meaningful and can beproblematic to focus on effectiveness and efficiency in sometasks. For example, tasks like reading, writing, or making apurchase can be hard to evaluate in terms of effectivenesssince the measure of effectiveness and how it relates tomeaningful task outcomes may not be clear. He also criticizes

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efficiency by asking what and who defines efficiency. Timespent on a task may not be weighted the same for the user andthe designer of the system. Factors such as preferred workingstyle, aesthetics, affects, and experiences with technology arealso important and cannot be measured by performance alone.

Computers no longer belong to workplaces only, but theyare part of our everyday life. Thus, the main purpose of HCI isno longer to improve performance in the workplace – which wasthought not supposed to be pleasurable -, but rather to providepleasurable experience to users. Focusing only on usabilitydoes not provide pleasurable experiences. It was found that theproducts that are perceived as pleasurable tend to be used moreoften (Jordan, 1998). Many studies propose that the developmentand evaluation of systems should also include other featureslike aesthetic qualities and induced affects (e.g., Hassenzahl,2006; Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006; Thüring & Mahlke, 2007).

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a complex phenomenon in which no clear anddefined boundaries exist, however it can roughly be defined asthe study of beauty, taste and art (Feagin& Maynard, 1997). Theterm aesthetics takes its origins from the Greek word aisthetikoswhich means sensation and perception. Aesthetics is studied anddefined in several disciplines; mainly in philosophy but alsoin hard sciences.

Aesthetics or beauty and goodness have a long tradition ofbeing mentioned together. Aristotle held beauty and the good asunited concepts and argued that the beautiful is the highestgood (Ross et al., 2012). The “beautiful is good” phenomenon isanother thing that can be mentioned when it comes to beauty andgoodness. This phenomenon was studied in an experiment that wasdone by Dion and colleagues (1972), where they found thatattractive individuals are associated with more sociallydesirable personality traits, better jobs and marriages andoverall happier lives. Aesthetics is also mentioned as thetruth. Mathematics is highly connected to art and beauty withconcept such as symmetry, proportions and the golden section(Emmer, 2005). Architecture can be given as an example toexplain this better, where such concepts are crucial.

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When it comes to aesthetics in HCI, there are two pointsof view; aesthetics as physical properties and the aestheticsthat arise from interacting with the product. Shusterman (2000)separates physical aesthetics and aesthetics arising frominteraction with the product where he defines analyticalaesthetics as a product property and the appearance of theproduct, and pragmatic aesthetics as the aesthetics that arisein the user when interacting with the product. In theanalytical aesthetics view, Hassenzahl (2008) definesaesthetics as a visual gestalt; perception of visual orphysical properties. According to this view, aesthetics are thephysical qualities of content and services. Lavie andTractinsky (2004) divide physical aesthetics in two; classicaland expressive aesthetics. By classical aesthetics, they referto the traditional notions of aesthetics such as clear, wellorganized and symmetrical; and by expressive aesthetics, theyrefer to the qualities that do not fall under traditionalaesthetics, like creativity, originality and fascinatingdesign.

Several researchers argue that taking the point ofanalytical aesthetics is not enough to understand aesthetics.Pragmatic aesthetics suggest taking the user’s sociohistoricalbackground into account to understand aesthetics. Dewey(1987),for example, argues that aesthetics cannot be understoodwithout sociohistorical aspects. An object is not beautiful initself without our interpretation of it which is shaped by oursociohistorical perception of its feautures. For example,Hartmann and colleagues (2007) define aesthetics asexperiences like enjoyment, fun and attractiveness, andqualities such as cool, adorable or tragic that cannot bethought about without context and culture since such qualitiesand experiences are not the same in every context and for everyculture.

Aesthetics has only recently been considered in HCI and inthe cases where aesthetics was mentioned, it was mostly tocaution about its detrimental effects (Tranctinsky, 1997). Onereason for this could be that HCI and computer scienceoriginates from disciplines that emphasize hard science,utility and efficiency, and that aesthetics in this context wasthought to be of little consequence (Tractinsky et al., 2000).Norman (1988) argued that aesthetics is not as important as

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usability, and that focusing on aesthetics can make a designerblind to its usability. Studies of aesthetics in HCI haverevealed several effects of aesthetics. For example, productsfound to be more aesthetically pleasing were rated as moretrustworthy (Robins & Holmes, 2007), gave a more positiveoverall impression (Tractinsky et al., 2000 ; Tuch et al.,2010), and to have a higher perceived usability (Thüring &Mahlke, 2007 ; Tractinsky et al., 2000).

Tractinsky and collegues (2000) explain these results as a“halo-effect”; when a product is aesthetically pleasing, itovershadows other, less positive features of the artifact.Theyrelate their findings to the “what is beautiful is good”notion, which is the social perception that beautiful peopletend to be associated with positive attributes (Dion et al.,1972). He also argues that aesthetics elicits affectiveresponses that put users in a positive mood, which leads themto evaluate the system more favourly. Norman argues in his bookEmotional Design (2004) that aesthetics is more important thanusability, although he had claimed the opposite in his earlierwork (1988). He also says that aesthetically pleasing objectslead to more positive emotions, and that positive emotions aremore likely to make people more tolerant towards systemfailures, and to work harder to create new solutions for them.Tractinsky (2004) puts forth three arguments for why theaesthetic features are as important as the usability features.First, the advances in technology have exceeded many users’needs. There are several products available to users with thesame functionality. That leads people to choose products withhigher aesthetic qualities. Secondly, we use visual cues whenevaluating our environment and technology is more and more partof our environment. Finally, he argues that aesthetics is abasic human need. It is important to mention here that eventhough aesthetics and beauty might mean different things indifferent contexts, they will be used interchangeably in thepresent paper.

Emotions

Emotions are mental, biological and psychophysiological statesthat influence our thoughts and behavior. There have been twodifferent school of thoughts when defining emotions; cognitiveand physical (Desmet, 2003). The cognitive approach suggest

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that emotions derive from our cognitive processes such asdecision making, and the physical approach suggest they derivefrom our feelings of the changes in our body. These twoapproaches lead to several different definitions, however alldefinitions agree that emotions are reactions to eventsrelevant to our needs, goals and concerns, and emotions havebehavioral, cognitive, physiological and affective components(Brave & Ness, 2003).

Norman (2004) talks about three levels of emotions;visceral, behavioral and reflective. The visceral level refersto the instinctual emotions where fast judgments occur. Thebehavioral level is the conscious level which affects ourbehaviors and lastly, the reflective level is the highest levelwhich controls our behaviors according to our beliefs, ourculture and the message we want to give to the world. Hesuggests that different design features affect different levelsof emotions. Aesthetics influence the visceral level, usabilityand functions influence the behavioral level and the overallfeel and message of the product affect the reflective level.

LeDoux (1996) proposed a neuropsychological framework foremotions in which all sensory input from the environment isreceived by the thalamus. The thalamus then sends informationboth to the cortex and to the limbic system. The cortex isresponsible for the higher cognitive processing and the limbicsystem evaluates the information according to needs and goals.When relevant, it sends signals both to the body forphysiological responses and to the cortex, which interpretsthem on a cognitive level. Emotions can be divided in twodifferent sets; primary (Damasio, 1994; Ekman, 1992) andsecondary emotions (Damasio, 1994; Gaunt et al., 2002). Primaryemotions are the innate emotions that are present in all humansand some animals, and the result of the direct pathway betweenthe thalamus and the limbic system. According to Damasio(1994), primary emotions were developed to support reactions todangerous situations where immediate response is needed.Secondary emotions are the more complex emotions that onlybelong to humans, and which are the result of the signals fromthe limbic system to the cortex.

When people interact with IT products, both primary andsecondary emotions may occur. Some of the most commonlyexperienced emotions when interacting with a product or system

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are anger, happiness, anxiety and happiness. This is not to saythat people do not experience other emotions during theirinteraction, but these are the commonly experienced ones(Beudry & Pinsonneault, 2010). Frustration or anger is the mostcommonly experienced emotion when interacting with IT products(Hazlett & Benedek, 2007). Scheirer and colleagues (2002) arguethat the main reason for frustration is delayed reinforcement.The level of frustration depends on the importance of the goal,the user’s expectation of achieving the goal, severity of theproblem that is preventing the user from achieving the goal,the length of delay in achieving the goal, and the effortneeded to overcome the problem (Hazlett & Benedek, 2007).Happiness is another emotion that is important to activate whenthe users interact with the IT products. As mentioned before,happiness or positive affect enhances the decision making andproblem solving skills (Isen, 2001). When interacting with ITproducts, happiness comes from the feeling that one achievesone’s goals (Briggs et al., 2008). It was found that people whoexperience positive emotions while using a product will morelikely to continue using it (Battacherjee, 2001) and users witha positive affect are more likely to evaluate a product morepositively (Clore & Gasper, 2000). Anxiety is experienced whenthe users perceive an IT product or a system as a threat andfeel that they have little control over the consequences. Itwas found that the users resist using products that theyperceive as a threat and that give them little power over theproduct (Lapointe & Rivard, 2005). Excitement is a commonlyfelt emotion that designers want to activate with theirproducts. The users experience excitement when they think theproduct will have benefits. Beaudry and Pinsonneault (2005)argue that excitement will likely to cause users to explore theproduct and try to attain their goals with it.

Emotions have, like aesthetics, not been studied much inHCI research. This may to some extent be because emotions havea long tradition of being seen as irrational and unscientific(Picard, 1997). Another reason is that HCI and usability weredeveloped to assess the employees’ interaction with thecomputers and to increase productivity, performance andadaptation. It was thought that emotions had no place in suchaspects of interaction.

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However, we now know that emotions have an impact on ourcognitive processes and everyday decisions. Emotions andcognitive processes are separate but interactive systems in thebrain (LeDoux, 1989). Emotions influence learning and memory(Bower, 1981), performance (Hirt et al., 1996; Isen, 2000),decision making (Damasio, 1994), and strategic planning(LeDoux, 1992). Stimulating appropriate emotions with a productwas found to increase the value of the product (Fujita &Nishikawa, 2001). In an e-commerce website emotions that thewebsite induced were found to influence users’ memories of theproduct and their decisions (Kim, 1998).

User Experience

User experience is a term that is used to describe the overallexperience a user has with a product or system. There are manyaspects of user experience, but they can be divided into threecategories; instrumental qualities, non-instrumental qualitiesand emotional reactions. Instrumental qualities can be seen asthe usability of the system and includes features such as easeof use, effectiveness, support it provides and thecontrollability. Non-instrumental qualities are about how thesystem looks and feels, such as the aesthetics of it. Mahlkeand Thuring (2007) argue that perception of instrumental andnon-instrumental categories influence the emotional reactionsusers have.

Aesthetics and usability have generally been thought to beunrelated. Herbert Read said "it requires a somewhat mysticaltheory of aesthetics to find any necessary connection betweenbeauty and function” in one of his books (1953, p.61). One ofthe first studies to challenge that view is the widely citedautomated teller machine (ATM) study by Kurosu and Kashimura(1995). They developed two ATMs with the same usability, whichdiffered in how they looked; one of them was attractive and theother one was not. Their result showed that people found theattractive one easier to use.

Following the study by Kurosu and Kashimura, severalcorrelational and experimental studies were done to explore thesubject. In the correlation studies, the participants wereshown a product and asked to rate usability and aestheticbefore and/or after interacting with the product and most

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studies found a positive correlation (e.g., Tractinsky, 1997;Chawda et al., 2005; Hartmann et al., 2007; van Schaik & Link,2008; Quinn & Tran, 2010). Two of them could not a find asignificant correlation (Hassenzahl, 2004; van Schaik & Link,2009), however the one by van Schaik and Link (2009) comparedaesthetics with actual usability (e.g. task load) while everyother studies looked at perceived usability. This is probablywhy they could not find any correlations. In the experimentalstudies where aesthetics and usability were manipulated, threestudies showed main effects of aesthetics on perceivedusability (Ben-Bassat et al., 2006; Lee& Koubek, 2010;Tractinsky et al., 2000) and three studies showed main effectsof usability on perceived aesthetics (Ben-Bassat et al., 2006;Lee & Koubek, 2010; Tuch et al., 2012).

Studies of about emotions as a function of usabilityunsurprisingly showed that high usability yield positiveemotions and vice versa. A study done by Turich and Mahlke(2007) used several emotional measurement methods to studyemotional reactions to high and low usability and aesthetics,and showed that high usability and high aesthetics lead tomore positive and less arousing subjective feelings. Highusability and aesthetics lead users to feel satisfied and lowusability and low aesthetics made users annoyed. When theycompared results for usability and aesthetics, they found thathigh usability arouses more positive feelings than highaesthetics does.

In conclusion, usability and aesthetics are the mostimportant factors that influence user preferences (e.g.,Hartmann et al., 2008; Schrepp et al., 2006), and emotionalresponses frame the user experience. The purpose of the presentstudy is therefore to examine how usability and aestheticsinfluence the perception of each other, as well as theemotional reactions.

Hypotheses are that (1) higher usability leads to higherperceived aesthetics; (2) higher aesthetics leads to higherperceived usability; (3) Higher levels of aesthetics andusability independently lead to more positive emotions.

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MethodsPilot study for determining levels

Usability was manipulated by changing the informationarchitecture (IA), feedback and accessibility. A preliminaryusability test was conducted with 64 participants aged 24. 16(SD= 10.30). The participants were asked to perform tasks andrated the websites with the System Usability Scale (SUS;Brooke, 1996). The websites were found to differ in usability.

To create websites differing in aesthetics, six differentwebsites were created. The websites have the same content andinteraction elements such as navigation bar to avoidconfounding with usability. The websites differ in background,font families and font colors. The font families and colorswere chosen carefully, not to affect usability. The screenshotsof websites were rated by 139 participants aged 25.20 (SD =8.53) as a preliminary study. The websites that were rated asthe highest, medium and lowest in aesthetics were used in themain study.

Participants

32 participants (18 male) aged 33.25 (SD = 12.51) took part inthe study. An invitation to participate in the study was postedon Facebook, and sent to two mailing groups of around 100people.

Materials

To measure perceived usability System Usability Scale (SUS;Brooke, 1996) was used (Appendix 1). To measure perceivedaesthetics, items from Visual Aesthetics of Website Inventory(visAWI; Moshagen & Thielsch, 2010) were used (Appendix 2).

To measure emotional reactions, four five-level scale questionswere used, that were generated by Beaudry and Pinsonneault(2010; Appendix 3).

Procedure

The experiment took place online. Participating in the studywas voluntary. An introductory website was designed to explain

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the reason of the study, how long it takes and instructions ofwhat the participants should do to complete the study. Theinstructions were to find busses that travels in Umea, findhostels in Umea and find museums in Umea. Participantsperformed all three tasked in five webpages. They were asked tofill out the perceived usability, perceived aesthetics andemotion scales after completing tasks for each webpage. Toavoid order effects, the five websites were presented in fivedifferent orders to each of five groups of the participants.

Design

The study is within-subjects and has two independent variableswith three levels. The independent variables are interfaceusability and interface aesthetics with three levels; lowmedium and high. The dependent variables are perceivedusability, perceived aesthetics and four emotions, namelyanger, excitement, anxiety and happiness.

Five different websites were created, designed as atourist guide. The websites that differ in usability have thesame aesthetics (medium) and the websites that differ inaesthetics have the same usability (medium). This given thefollowing combinations; high usability- medium aesthetics,medium usability-medium aesthetics, low usability-mediumaesthetics, high aesthetics-medium usability, and lowaesthetics-medium usability.

ResultsBefore examining the hypothesized effects of usability onperceived aesthetics, it is necessary to do a manipulationcheck of the independent variable. The results showed thatperceived usability differed between all three levels ofintended usability: High = 90 (SD = 8.23), medium = 77.50 (SD =12.20) and low =61.02 (SD = 26.40). Both differences weresignificant (F 2, 62 = 26.60, p <.05,

A one-way within subjects ANOVA with perceived aestheticsas dependent variable and usability as independent variable(high, medium and low, see Table 1) showed a significanteffect. (F 2, 62 = 22.57, p < .05, 41). Three dependent t-

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tests assessed difference between each pair of conditions. Theresults indicated that perceived aesthetics for high usabilitywas significantly different from and low usability, and themedium was also significantly different than low usability.

Turning now to perceived usability, we start by amanipulation check of intended aesthetics. Mean perceivedaesthetics was 31.09(SD = 6.58) for high aesthetics, 25.72 (SD= 5.24) for medium aesthetics, and 14.94 (SD =8.25) for lowaesthetics, and these differences were significant, accordingto a one-way within-participants ANOVA (F2, 62 = 47.81; p < .05,.61).

A one-way within subjects ANOVA was conducted to comparethe effect of aesthetics on perceived usability (see Table1).There was a significant effect of the aesthetics onperceived usability (F2, 62 = 37.58, p < .05, .55).Surprisingly, low aesthetics had high SD. Three dependent t-test showed that high aesthetics was significantly differentfrom medium and low aesthetics, and the medium was alsosignificantly different from low aesthetics.

Table 1. Means and SDs for perceived aesthetics (PA) for usabilityand perceived usability (PU) for aesthetics

PA forusability

SUS foraesthetics

Levels M SD M SD

High 32.00 6.37 87.58 8.94

Medium 25.71 5.24 77.50 12.20

Low 22.09 7.40 58.13 19.20

Note. PU scores are SUS scores

The effects of the independent variables on all fouremotions were tested with one-way within-participant ANOVAs.For anger, there were significant effects of usability (F2, 62 =7.30, p < .05, .19) and aesthetics (F2, 62 = 26.49, p< .005, .46). For usability and aesthetics, threedependent t-tests showed that anger results for low levels ofIVs were significantly different than high and medium levels,

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however there were no significant difference between high andlow levels.

For excitement, there were significant effects of usability(F (2, 62) = 540, p < .05, .14) and aesthetics (F2, 62 = 5.61, p< .005, .15). For usability and aesthetics, threedependent t-tests showed that high levels of IVs weresignificantly different than the medium levels, but not fromthe low levels. Medium and low levels exhibited no differenceseither.

For anxiety, there were significant effects of usability(F2, 62 = 9.62, p < .05, .24) and aesthetics (F2, 62 = 24.66, p< .005, .44). For usability and aesthetics, threedependent t-tests assessed that low levels of IVs weresignificantly different high and medium levels, however highand medium levels showed no significant difference.

For happiness, there were significant effects of usability(F2, 62 = 5.47, p < .05, .15) and aesthetics (F2, 62 = 4.69, p< .05, .13). For usability, three dependent t-tests showedthat high usability was significantly different than lowusability, however no differences were found between high andmedium, and medium and low usability. For aesthetics, nodifferences between levels were found.

A dependent t-test conducted to compare the emotionresults for usability and aesthetics also found no significantdifferences.

Table 2. Emotion means and SDs for usability and aestheticsUsability Anger Excitement Anxiety Happiness

M SD M SD M SD M SD

High 1.31 .93 2.09 1.17 1.21

.61 2.22 .22

Medium 1.25 .84 1.46 .80 1.21

.61 1.53 .15

Low 2.16 1.19 1.71 .99 1.97

1.03 1.62 .17

AestheticsHigh 1.29 .79 2.06 1.21 1.3 .86 2.09 1.28

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1Medium 1.25 .84 1.47 .80 1.2

1.60 1.53 .88

Low 2.81 1.38 1.50 .88 2.72

1.17 1.53 1.01

DiscussionThe purpose of the present study was to examine the effects ofusability and aesthetics on perceived usability and aesthetics,in particular how one affects the other, as well as onemotional reactions. As hypothesized, usability affectedperceived aesthetics, unlike many existing studies. The meandifferences between high and medium usability were found to behigher than the differences between medium and low usability.Since differences in perceived usability were found to beroughly the same, it can be concluded that different levels ofusability resulted in different kind of influence on perceivedaesthetics, thus supporting the claim made by Tuch andcolleagues (2012). When it comes to emotional reactions, thehypothesis was supported; high usability led to more positiveemotions and vice versa. Positive emotions towards a product ora system was found to be due to goal conduciveness and copingpotential (Thuring & Mahlke, 2007) and as Briggs and colleagues(2008) argue, happiness is evoked by achieving one’s goals wheninteracting with IT. When it comes to the negative emotions,the results were no surprise since negative emotions wheninteracting with products or systems are argued to be due todelay or failure to achieve the goals and causing highercognitive effort (Hazlett & Benedek, 2007).

Another hypothesis of the study was that aestheticsaffects the perception of usability, which was supported.Finding such effects was not surprising since many studiesreported similar results. The differences between perceivedusability between all three conditions were roughly the same,thus aesthetics influenced perceived usability the same for allthree levels. However, drawing this conclusion can beproblematic, since perceived aesthetics between aestheticlevels were different. The present study, however, raises thequestion of how the level of aesthetics changes the level of

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perceived usability. When it comes to emotional responsestowards aesthetics, higher aesthetics led to more positiveemotions and vice versa, thus supporting the hypothesis.Aesthetics influencing perceived usability has been explainedwith a halo-effect and affective responses to aesthetics(Tractinsky et al., 2000), which can explain such results. Oneinteresting finding was that low and medium aesthetics did notdiffer in positive emotions, which might be due to thepossibility of aesthetics requiring certain level to evokepositive emotions.

Earlier studies that compared emotional reactions todifferent levels of usability and aesthetics found that higherusability evokes more positive emotions than does highaesthetics. In the present study, no differences were found.

The present study has some shortcomings. First, thedifferences between the different levels of aesthetics and thedifferent levels of usability was not matched, which makes itimpossible to compare them. For a future study, they can bematched to yield more valid results. Another shortcoming wasonly using subjective reports to measure emotions. Even thoughinformative, including other emotional measurement techniquessuch physiological reactions and motor expressions can givemore accurate results. Another limitation was the relativelysmall sample size, and having a larger sample size might givemore accurate results. Lastly, the websites might be suboptimaland in future studies, they might be improved.

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Appendix 1

1. I think that I would like to use this website frequently. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

2. I found this website unnecessarily complex. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

3. I thought this website was easy to use. *

1 2 3 4 5

Strongly Strongly

22

Disagree Agree

4. I think that I would need assistance to be able to use thiswebsite. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

5. I found the various functions in this website were wellintegrated. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

6. I thought there was too much inconsistency in this website. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

7. I would imagine that most people would learn to use this websitevery quickly. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

8. I found this website very cumbersome/awkward to use. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

9. I felt very confident using this website. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

23

10. I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going withthis website. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

24

Appendix 2

11. Everything goes together on this site *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

12. The layout is pleasantly varied. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

13. The colors do not match *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

14. The layout is not up-to-date. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

15. The site appears patchy. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

16. The design is uninteresting *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

17. The colors are appealing *

25

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

18. The site is designed with care. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

Appendix 3

19. This website made me feel excited. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

20. This website made me feel angry. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

21. This website made me feel anxious. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

22. This website made me feel happy. *

1 2 3 4 5

StronglyDisagree

StronglyAgree

26

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