Aesthetics in hypermedia: Impact of colour harmony on implicit memory and user experience

Abstract

According to recent perspectives on human-computer interactions, subjective aspects (emotion or visual attractiveness) have to be considered to provide optimal multimedia material. However, the research investigating the impact of aesthetics or emotional design has yielded varying conclusions regarding the use of interfaces and the resulting learning outcomes. Possible reasons include implementation of the aesthetics variable which varies from one study to another. On this base, an experimental study was conducted to assess the influence of a specific feature of aesthetics, colour harmony, on the use and subjective evaluation of a website. The study involved 34 participants browsing on two versions of the same website about science-fiction movies, with harmonious vs. disharmonious colours as the between-subject factor. After conducting six information search tasks, participants answered to questionnaires assessing usability, user experience, non-instrumental and instrumental qualities. Measures of actual usability of the website, navigation, eye movements and implicit memory performance were collected. Results showed that disharmonious colours caused lower subjective ratings for pragmatic qualities, appeared to distract visual attention but, surprisingly, lead to higher memory performances. On the other hand, colour harmony did not impact the navigation and perceived usability of the system, the perception of the aesthetics (apart from colour), hedonic qualities as well as the experience of use. These findings comfort the hypothesis that aesthetic features affect users' behavior and perception, but not on all dimensions of user experience. Based on the findings, a model for future research in the field is suggested.