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      A blessing, not a curse: experimental evidence for beneficial effects of visual aesthetics on performance.

      1 , ,
      Ergonomics
      Informa UK Limited

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          Abstract

          The present experiment investigated the effect of visual aesthetics on performance. A total of 257 volunteers completed a series of search tasks on a website providing health-related information. Four versions of the website were created by manipulating visual aesthetics (high vs. low) and usability (good vs. poor) in a 2 x 2 between-subjects design. Task completion times and error rates were used as performance measures. A main effect of usability on both error rates and completion time was observed. Additionally, a significant interaction of visual aesthetics and usability revealed that high aesthetics enhanced performance under conditions of poor usability. Thus, in contrast to the notion that visual aesthetics may worsen performance, visual aesthetics even compensated for poor usability by speeding up task completion. The practical and theoretical implications of this finding are discussed.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Ergonomics
          Ergonomics
          Informa UK Limited
          1366-5847
          0014-0139
          Oct 2009
          : 52
          : 10
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Institute for Experimental Psychology, University of Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany. morten.moshagen@uni-duesseldorf.de
          Article
          915277868
          10.1080/00140130903061717
          19787509
          441af503-14f7-4833-a7db-d9ba3d452857
          History

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