Web aesthetic interaction design pattern in popular clothing brands websites: An initial investigation

Abstract

The growth of web has spurred studies towards the creation of human values through digital engagement. Against the backdrop of technology evolution, studies on web interaction design have begun to explore dimensions of human value derived from the aesthetics of interaction. In the past, the main focus of web was on visual beauty of the web user interface. However, recent development in web aesthetics has now moved towards the aesthetics of interaction. New forms and perspective of aesthetics of interaction needs to be explored. This paper reports on a study that was conducted to inspect the dominant pattern of dynamic web design elements. In this study the websites of online clothing were chosen. The sample of the online clothing websites is taken from the popular clothing brands websites from the link http://www.apparelsearch.com/Wholesale- Clothing/popular-brand-names-clothes.htm. The top 100 websites were surveyed based on web observation. The survey instrument consists of a checklist of features of dynamic web design elements identified from the literature. The findings of this study revealed the existence of some dynamic web design elements in the online clothing websites. However, the percentage of websites exhibiting dynamic web design elements is small. The most visible dynamic web design elements show movement of sequence and slow tempo. This result signifies design practice of aesthetic interaction is just emerging and is currently not choreographed to produce a graceful interaction. This research then proposed the need to conceptualize dynamic web design elements for web aesthetic interaction design to form graceful interaction. Future work will attempt efforts of identifying consumer's subjective perception towards dynamic web design element in the attempt to incorporate graceful interaction in website as to enhance the aesthetic experience of online clothing website. ©2010 IEEE.