Linking objective design factors with subjective aesthetics: An experimental study on how structure and color of websites affect the facets of users’ visual aesthetic perception

• This study links objective design factors with subjective aesthetics.
• Each design factor affects the facets of subjective aesthetics in a different way.
• Structural factors have a great impact on simplicity, diversity and craftsmanship.
• Color factors have a great impact especially on colorfulness.

The present study examines how objective design factors of a website are linked to different facets of subjective aesthetic perception. Five online experiments based upon the screenshots of real-existing websites with a total of N = 194 participants were conducted to isolate and analyze the effects of two objective structural factors (vertical symmetry, visual complexity) and three objective color factors (hue, saturation, brightness) on the different facets of subjective aesthetic perception (simplicity, diversity, colorfulness, craftsmanship) measured with the Visual Aesthetics of Website Inventory (Moshagen & Thielsch, 2010). Although all investigated factors are apparent features in website design, their effects on different facets of subjective aesthetic perception are not yet well understood. Our results show that websites of high symmetry, low complexity, blue hue, medium brightness or medium and high saturation received the highest overall aesthetics ratings. Furthermore, data reveal that structural factors compared to color factors have a manifold and greater impact on the different facets of subjective aesthetic perception than the color factors. Both structural factors have a great impact on simplicity, diversity and craftsmanship whereas the color factors have a great impact especially on colorfulness. Only complexity affects all facets of subjective aesthetic perception. The other objective design factors had effects on specific facets. Our findings shed light on the relationship between objective and subjective factors of aesthetic perception and may help designers to systematically target specific facets of visual aesthetics.