Aesthetic-Usability Effect

The aesthetic-usability effect is a cognitive bias in which people perceive a more visually attractive design as easier to use than a less attractive one, regardless of how the two designs actually compare in real functional usability. The researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura, working at Hitachi in Tokyo, first demonstrated the effect empirically, finding that a design's apparent beauty correlated more strongly with how users rated its usability than the design's actual functional performance did. The researchers concluded that because users can be strongly swayed by a product's aesthetic appeal even when they intend to judge it purely on function, designers should give real weight to both visual appeal and functional quality rather than treating them as separate concerns. Usability and aesthetics are widely regarded as the two most important factors shaping a person's overall experience of a product or application, with a person's own cognitive style, meaning their characteristic way of processing information, also influencing how strongly the effect shapes their judgment.