The Aesthetic-Usability Effect in Design

China. 2021.

TikTok amassed over 600 million users daily and hit $4.6 in revenue.

By the end of 2022, TikTok’s monthly active users are expected to skyrocket to 105 billion. Although banned in one of the largest populations in the world, India, it seems that TikTok’s UI hit all the right boxes.

But this isn’t about TikTok. It is a little bit. But mostly, it’s about the aesthetic-usability effect.

What is the Aesthetic-Usability Effect?

The origins of the aesthetic-usability effect date back to 1995. Researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura from the Hitachi Design Center tested 26 variations of an ATM UI. 252 participants were tasked to rate each design on its aesthetic appeal and ease of use.

The results revealed a stronger correlation between the participants’ ratings of aesthetic appeal and perceived ease of use. The researchers concluded that the aesthetics of any interface heavily influence users.

The #1 lesson in UX design.

The Gist:

• Aesthetically pleasing designs elicit a positive response from the user, making them believe the design works better.

• People tend to overlook minor issues if the design is aesthetically pleasing.

• Pleasing-to-the-eye design can conceal usability problems and prevent issues from coming to light during usability testing.

Get this.

• 38% of users will leave a website if they find it unattractive.

• 39% of visitors will leave a website if the images take too long to load or don’t load at all.

• Almost 80% of users research a small business online before purchasing.

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What can we learn from these numbers?

While beauty may only be skin deep, some things are objectively “ugly”. Want an honest opinion? Hang out with some kids. They’ll be quick to tell or show with their actions that they don’t care much for conventionally less attractive people.

In fact, children are less likely to trust “ugly” people.

But, why blame children? What do they know? Certainly, far less than we do.

We just have to look around us to find the biases we hide in plain sight. It’s been well-documented how attractive people find it easier to land jobs, and subsequently get promoted more frequently than their lesser attractive yet more hard-working counterparts.

It may come as a surprise but even getting into university becomes more accessible to those who look like Jason Mamoa or Ana de Armas.

“Attractiveness already helps students get into universities in the first place, by eliciting more favorable evaluations during college admission interviews.”

But, it isn’t just about what we like and what sort of human beings we prefer to look at. It’s all around us – design is in everything we see. And we’re quick to judge.

Especially if it is a web design.

Why are we Critical of Web Design?

We’ve developed a taste for the finer things. And, we don’t have time.

We only have six seconds. That’s our threshold. 52% of users will leave a website if a page takes longer than that to load.

So, we’ll go back to TikTok to highlight how the sensational app gets a user hooked with remarkable UI and how it understands the value of time.

How Did TikTok Do It?

• TikTok commands attention.

• Users spend 44 minutes per day on the platform.

• TikTok has more monthly users on LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Twitter combined.

It’s reducing our already fickle attention span. But we don’t care about that because we’re already hooked.

TikTok’s UI works because it follows the rules. Yet, they would have you believe it’s constantly coloring outside the lines.

It lures you instantly with its matter-of-fact, non-fuss sign-up process. A nod to Hick’s Law, the designers at TikTok know that a user will only be aggravated when presented with too many options. The process is straightforward. The number of steps? Minimal.

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Once you’re in – there’s no going back.

A video immediately confronts you. It’s got millions of views.

The UI almost feels arbitrary.

But without any effort from the user, they are rewarded with a video they may like. It’s got millions of views -- the snippet must be doing something right.

Want to explore more but don’t want to follow anyone? Sure, why not. TikTok understands ego and pride like no one else. It urges you to create a video of your own as an animated tooltip nudges you to take that leap.

But, why should it matter why you or anyone else makes a video? Because, without content creation, there is no TikTok.

Although the TikTok feed is infinite, its usability is simple. With swipe interactions, navigation is easy.

TikTok, like any other successful UI, uses time-tested principles to its advantage. A UI doesn’t become “beautiful” when random elements are placed together. It’s when behavioral patterns blend with the laws of UX to produce something beautiful – something that we trust.

At the heart of it, aesthetics is about simplifying everything.

Ensuring UI Success in 2022

When you’re done simplifying everything, follow these tips to create a beautiful website that’s also easy to trust:

• Take typography risks

• Experiment with neumorphism and glassmorphism

• Create personalized experiences and interfaces

But, most importantly, don’t just stick to Pantone because someone’s called it the ‘color of the year’. At Pepper Square, we take risks while sticking to the rules. We create UI UX designs that transform the world. How do we do that? We follow time-tested guidelines, brainstorm, and most importantly, we listen to the user. Want to learn more about us and the work we do? Let’s get in touch.