Aesthetics vs Functionality: Striking a balance in UX Design

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Often times, designing a pretty looking interface is just not enough!

As a designer, i’ve heard that line so many times. Yes, It is important to create a product that allows users solve their problems, but can we truly say that aesthetics do not play a major role in user experience? It is usually hard to predict people’s interests for a product because human minds are somehow complicated and unpredictable.

How do we tell what users see when they look at the product? What they feel while using it? What they remember after using it? What comments they make about the product? Ofcourse, these constitute the concept of User Experience and UX researchers typically find answers to these questions. However, the leading attracting force of any sort of product -physical or digital- is it’s design. Product design has two important attributes that play key roles in its usability; aesthetics and functionality.

Functionality is the “what” of ux design. This addresses the question; what can users do with the product? It’s important to remember the ultimate reason we build a product. It should do something that we can’t do anywhere else. Maybe it connects us, or provides access to a tangible product, or maybe it inspires and educates us. Regardless of the form, functionality is the core of a product, which is most likely why most people tend to place it above aesthetics. After all, if it works quite well, why bother on how it looks like, right?

Wrong. Aesthetics is as important as functionality, It is one of the dynamics of user experience. It is the visual interaction and attractiveness which make a connection between user and product. For some products, it’s aesthetics is the only thing that attracts users, products that need to look pretty to sell such as decorative pieces. Some users simply place aesthetics on a higher scale, for example, a consumers’ loyalty and passion for an automobile brand could be driven more by its appearance than practical concerns like horsepower or fuel efficiency. For others, the functionality of the product is everything for the user, for example, the nairaland online forum has a pretty basic and boring UI, but it is one of the most highly ranked sites visited by Nigerians to ask questions, get relevant information, and share knowledge.

In 1995, Researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura from the Hitachi Design Center demonstrated the aesthetic-usability effect by testing 26 variations of an ATM UI, asking 252 study participants to rate each design on ease of use, as well as aesthetic appeal. They found a stronger correlation between the participants’ ratings of aesthetic appeal and perceived ease of use than the correlation between their ratings of aesthetic appeal and actual ease of use. It was concluded that "users are strongly influenced by the aesthetics of any given interface, even when they try to evaluate the underlying functionality of the system". (Kurosu, Masaaki; Kashimura, Kaori, 1995). In other words, the aesthetic–usability effect plays an important role in user experience and cannot be ignored.

So how do we strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality? How can we tell what aspect of the product influences the user’s behaviour and feelings to make them use it or buy more of it? As a product designer, I must be able to translate requirements into practical product features and ultimately help build products that are easy to use as well as visually appealing to our customers. So when designing a product I focus on functional beauty, this balls down to finding an equilibrium between aesthetics and functionality. Sacrificing one for the other is out of the question.

So when designing a product I focus on functional beauty, this balls down to finding an equilibrium between aesthetics and functionality. Sacrificing one for the other is out of the question.

Functional beauty is part of a long, well-documented process, where design thinking, not design making, leads the way from ideas to tangible products. The diagram on the right shows how functional beauty emerges from the following major components of a well-designed product:

Aesthetics are important; beauty in environment, actions and products that we buy and use. “Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability-they should go hand in hand.” (Norman, 2004). It can also be said about technology and interfaces, contrary to the people who are of the opinion that functionality is enough to sell a product. The fact is aesthetics brings trust. According to the Standford Web Credibility Study, users mostly believe and trust the websites that look professionally well designed. The study shows "there is a clear connection between design and site credibility" (Fogg, 2002).

Despite opposing opinions on whether aesthetics can really affect users’ choices, it is impossible not to see the role of aesthetics not only in the acceptance, use, and performance of a product but in our lives generally. We can all agree that the usability of a product is essential, however, aesthetics is a desirable feature of the products we buy, with the power to shape consumer choices and preferences.