# Aesthetic-Usability Effect

Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.

Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.

### Takeaways

-   An aesthetically pleasing design creates a positive response in people’s brains and leads them to believe the design actually works better.

-   People are more tolerant of minor usability issues when the design of a product or service is aesthetically pleasing.

-   Visually pleasing design can mask usability problems and prevent issues from being discovered during usability testing.

### Origins

  The aesthetic-usability effect was first studied in the field of human–computer interaction in 1995. Researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura from the Hitachi Design Center tested 26 variations of an ATM UI, asking the 252 study participants to rate each design on ease of use, as well as aesthetic appeal. They found a stronger correlation between the participants’ ratings of aesthetic appeal and perceived ease of use than the correlation between their ratings of aesthetic appeal and actual ease of use. Kurosu and Kashimura concluded that users are strongly influenced by the aesthetics of any given interface, even when they try to evaluate the underlying functionality of the system.

  Source

### Further Reading

###
    The Aesthetic-Usability Effect

  Kate Moran | Nielsen Norman Group

###
    The Aesthetic Usability Effect and Prioritizing Appearance vs. Functionality

  Kathryn Whitenton | Nielsen Norman Group

###
    Aesthetic Usability Effect

  Wikipedia

###
    The Aesthetic-Usability Effect: Why Beautiful-Looking Products are Preferred Over Usable-But-Not-Beautiful Ones

  Abhishek Chakraborty | Medium

###
    A Neuropsychological Theory of Positive Affect and Its Influence on Cognition

  F. Gregory Ashby

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Source: https://lawsofux.com/aesthetic-usability-effect/
Category: Theory
Tags: usability, research