Aesthetic measures for screen design

Abstract

One way to enhance the usability of a computer system is to improve the appearance (beauty) of the user interface. The research reported here concerns making computers easier to learn and use by improving interface aesthetics through the use of aesthetic measures for evaluating screen layouts. We introduce five aesthetic measures: balance, equilibrium, symmetry, sequence, and order and complexity. The results of our informal study of the aesthetic measures demonstrate close relationships between the essence of artists' insights and the measures.