Is beautiful really usable? Understanding how aesthetics and usability influence user experience.
Javier Bargas-Avila, User Experience Researcher, Google (Switzerland)
September 17, 2013 at 12:30pm ET
Ever come across a product that looked beautiful but was awful to use? Or stumbled over a something that was ugly as hell but just did exactly what you wanted? Ever wondered how these factors work together, and how they influence the experiences we create? Product usability and aesthetics are coexistent, but they are not identical. In this talk I will give you an overview over existing research in this field and present the latest findings that show how usability, aesthetics and affect work together to create great - or not so great - experiences.
About Javier
Javier Bargas-Avila holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and works as Senior User Experience Researcher & Manager at Google (Switzerland). Before joining Google he was the manager of the HCI lab at the University of Basel (Switzerland) from 2004 to 2011. He published over 20 peer reviewed papers in HCI journals and conferences covering topics such as user satisfaction, mental models in website perception, first visual impression of websites or webform usability. Since 2011 he is part of the YouTube UX research team, where he currently focuses on internationalization, monetization and analytics.
Specialties: user studies, usability studies, user experience, experimental studies, cognitive psychology, online surveys, online experiments, user satisfaction, web form usability, aesthetics, usability.