Effects of Unity of Form and Symmetry on Visual Aesthetics of Website Interface Design

摘要

Unity of form represents the extent to which visual objects on the screen are related in size. High levelsof unity of form can be achieved by using objects with similar sizes on the screen and/or by reducingnumber of objects on the screen. Findings of earlier observational studies suggested that effect of unity ofform on perceived visual aesthetics of website design was more evident in case of highly symmetricalwebpages. The purpose of this study is to verify these findings. An experiment was conducted to systematicallystudy effects of number of objects and number of different sizes of objects on perceived visual aestheticsof website design at high and low levels of symmetry. Perceived aesthetics was assessed using the classical/expressive dimensions. Results showed that both factors have significant effects on perceived visualaesthetics, only at high levels of symmetry and only on the classical dimension.