Pretty things work better.
That’s not a value judgment about experiences with employees. It’s a judgment about what does, or does not, make for an effective website, advertising campaign, or new technology. It’s a judgment about the importance of aesthetics. Not just for the sake of aesthetics, but because aesthetics influence usability.
Does this prose spark a glimmer of recognition?:
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
- Louis Sullivan, Architect 1896
Louis was a terrific architect but “This is the law?” Puhleeeeze.
At Bleeding Edge we’re creating marketing and advertising campaigns, building websites and shooting videos. Building skyscrapers is not currently in our wheelhouse – so let’s move the analogies from Architecture to Web Design.
If form followed function every e-commerce site would look the same – Target and Walmart would have identical layouts. Kroger’s online pharmacy would look the same as Walgreen’s, Google would be identical to Yahoo, Bing and Ask. At Bleeding Edge our programmers have an impressive track record of coding elegant, functional, database driven websites, but the ultimate success of a project is dependent on features beyond functionality. Aesthetics, emotions and usability are inextricably linked to the success of a website or application.
In other words, Pretty Things Work Better.
Don Norman in the book “Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things” writes about a Japanese study:
Researchers in Japan setup two ATMs, “identical in function, the number of buttons, and how they worked.” The only difference was that one machine’s buttons and screens were arranged more attractively than the other. In both Japan and Israel (where this study was repeated) researchers observed that subjects encountered fewer difficulties with the more attractive machine. The attractive machine actually worked better.
The distinction between how something looks and how it works is artificial.
How do people respond to a website? To their first impression? To layout, colors and font?
How do the choices we make as designers and programmers influence a users understanding and emotions? How do those emotions influence behavior? How does the predictability of layout influence user psychology?
One of our clients asked us to put the navigation for their site on the right side of the page and we let them know that would be a mistake, not just because their website would start showing up in web developers blogs under “what not to do” examples, but because of user expectations. Users expect to see main navigation across the top of the page underneath the header, or possible underneath a banner, either horizontally across the page or vertically down the left side. If expectations are not met, they are gone in the time it takes to click the back button in their browser.
From assuming that a red “X” in a form field is bad and a green checkmark is good, the brain is constantly interpreting non-textual information on a site. Colors, shadows, shading, images are all reinforcing a brand message or contradicting it.
Researchers led by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard at Carleton University in Ontario wanted to find out how fast people formed first impressions. The result? In the blink of an eye – or only 1/20th of a second, web visitors form an opinion of a company. Through something called the halo effect, subsequent interactions on that site are colored: Judgements of credibility, usability & purchasing decisions. (Click here for a more in depth look at the study.)
From a study out of the Stanford University Persuasive Technology lab (read a complete summary report here in PDF format) we find that “The appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes is the number one factor we use to evaluate a websites credibility.”
The bottom Line? Attractive things work better: We want things that are pleasing to succeed and are more tolerant of any issues.
Neurobiologist Antonio Damasio:
“…emotion is not a luxury: it is an expression of basic mechanisms of life regulation developed in evolution, and is indispensable for survival. It plays a critical role in virtually all aspects of learning, reasoning, and creativity.”
We have consulted with clients time and again that thought their sites were failing because of functionality that was not user friendly. Time and again the problem was not functionality but rather butt ugly graphic design. Things are not enjoyable because they’re easy to use. Things will be easy to use if they are enjoyable.
How we think cannot be separated from how we feel. Referral marketing expert Wendy Kinney preaches that “specific is always more profitable than general.” I’d like to add an addendum to that and say that pretty is more profitable than ugly. At Bleeding Edge, we build pretty websites!
