Good aesthetics promote a feeling positivity while using the design, therefore elevating perceptions of usability and thus user effectiveness. This also functions in the inverse, where designs with poor aesthetics elevate user frustrations, triggering failures. Thus beauty sets an expectation and facilitation of usability.
SOURCES:
Norman, Donald A. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic, 2004
Lidwell, William. “Aesthetic-Usability Effect” Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design, Rockport, 2010.
Sources Example:
Three Teapots
The Three-in-One teapot has three modes of use — for adding water & tea, steeping, and pouring the tea without over steeping. While this is useful, there is aesthetic appeal to a product that adapts to use and gives renewed interest with a fresh take on an everyday object.
Online Example:
iPhone
The iPhone is similar to like products in the market, but the aesthetics of the interface and product design, along with the social aesthetic of choosing an Apple product makes it a continued market leader.
Personal Example:
My Lovely Office
My open-space office’s beautiful design adds to the sense that this is creative place for both clients and employees despite its actual features—desks, conference rooms and photo studio— being very similar to less sought-after agencies.
(**posted a reply but did it without logging in; I am reposting it just in case it didn’t come through**)
Great Examples Sarah! I believe the iPhone has raised the bar in terms of design for all products even outside the mobile industry. The have perfectly married a great hardware design with a intuitive software design.
I also feel Tesla has done the same with electric cars. It no longer looks ugly to own an electric car such as a Prius or Chevy Volt. Even though all cars share the same chasis, wheels, parts….the Tesla’s elegant design has made it very popular.
https://www.tesla.com/models
Echo same sentiment as Francis. Excellent and great real-life examples. I think iPhone has raised the bar in terms of marrying great hardware design with software.
Another example of Aesthetic-Usability Effect, would be in car design. Specifically the Tesla. It was the first car design for an electric car that turned heads. Although other cars (i.e. Prius and Chevy Volt) have the same chassis, wheels, and parts, it’s the elegant design of the Tesla which sets them apart.
Great examples provided, Sarah. This is one of the important design principles that should be considered while creating something new or improving an existing product or solution.
In my opinion, I feel like this principle needs to be carefully considered always in conjunction with other design principles. In my experience I had a couple occasions where this principle was on the top of the list of the Designer’s mind, and the result was something really beautiful and initially thought of useful, but with time and feedback from usability testing we learned that users couldn’t successfully perform their tasks without some level of frustration. One recent example was the revamp of the app Hulu (I am a user myself) and felt the pain (along with others):
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90129560/hulus-new-ux-is-beautiful-and-frustrating