What makes something visually appealing

Modernists build houses with functionality in mind and avoid ornamentation, but people who live in these houses start decorating them immediately. Beautiful architecture reduces the crime rate and raises the level of happiness. Life can be destructive for the psyche in places that lack beauty. Semir Zeki would say that this happens because where there is no beauty, there is no encouragement. People en masse favor the same colors and the same shapes.

Most can recognize the harmonious works of acknowledged artists among fakes. Even mentally disabled people show the same results. As a rule, no one makes ugly things on purpose. They are done as a result of indifference. In beautiful places, they take pictures and behave better. A book by Stefan Sagmeister and another world-renowned designer — Jessica Walsh.

Do you have a copy? Image: phaidon. This is where the line between aesthetics and utility becomes blurred. Beauty is more than just a superficial strategy: it has a pervasive influence on our lives, stimulating our senses, and ultimately making the world a better place.

According to the paper by Ines Schindler, a senior research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, beauty is something that we seek for its own sake. The act of admiring the aesthetics is emotionally fulfilling and gives us pleasure, thus becoming an ultimate goal instead of being just a side order.

The Halo effect is a cognitive bias that in simple words means that what is beautiful seems also interesting, good, and usable. Aesthetic experience is similar to the concept of flow, states in his work Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist. When people marvel at somebody or something, they immerse themselves in the process, with a strong attachment to the person or object that fascinates them.

For example, the most favorite shade of my favorite color is cornflower blue:. Photo by Peter Pieras from Pixabay. So any product featuring a similar shade immediately attracts my attention and I stop to get my dose of endorphins:. Financial Assistant App Animation by Shakuro. People prefer things that are easy to understand. In other words, the easier something can be processed, the more welcome it becomes to a person.

This idea explains why a complex idea presented in an accessible way can give a feeling of aesthetic pleasure. Moreover, even the captivating effect of the golden ratio is perhaps can be explained by the sensation of simplicity it gives to an onlooker. Slovakian designer Tomas Kral uses simplicity in his designs.

Image: tomaskral. The power of simplicity and cleanness is widely embraced in the field of web and app design. However, more recently social psychologists have shown via studies that people perceive aesthetically pleasing objects as easier to use and better quality overall. What does this mean for us as consumers? Designers are now more than ever keenly aware that aesthetics are a 4D experience. Meaning, they appeal not just to sight, but to all our senses. They also know that beautiful objects are perceived to be more valuable and more functional, even if this is not always true.

The perception still holds. Take our smartphones for example, when comparing two phones there may be nothing inherently different about them from a component standpoint, but one may be considerably more expensive because it has a prettier design and a simpler user interface. Aesthetics extend beyond the realm of art into our daily lives. Designers know that we as consumers we are no longer expecting just basic functionality when we make a purchase.

We are looking to buy beautiful objects that stimulate our senses and evoke positive emotions. We are also becoming the designers of our lives by developing our own unique personal style which we seek to express in our homes, dress and lifestyle. Learning these qualities improves your design sensibilities which makes you a better critic.

With all five senses, the experience is made more aesthetically pleasing when the qualities are combined in a way that creates harmony, balance, and interest.

For most people, vision is the most dominant sense and is the one that we typically think of first when it comes to aesthetics.

We are naturally drawn to looking at and admiring beautiful things. Whether we are taken with the color, shape or an interesting pattern, our eyes are captivated by what we see.

In visual aesthetics the following principles are used to create beauty: balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion, pattern, unity and contrast. Along with the visual elements: color, line, shape, value, texture. Our ears allow us to perceive an even deeper sense of aesthetics.

For instance we can hear the sound an object makes or the melody in a song. Sound aesthetics can be enjoyed on their own or combined with other senses to create immersive experiences. Sound aesthetics use the following elements to create enjoyment for our ears: loudness, pitch, beat, repetition, melody, pattern, noise.

Our sense of touch also plays a key element in aesthetics. How many times have you evaluated a piece of clothing or other physical object based on how it feels to touch? Skin is our largest organ and we interact with everything in our environment via touch in countless ways on a daily basis.

Important elements of touch aesthetics include: texture, shape, weight, softness, temperature, vibration, sharpness. Our sense of smell can alert us to dangers like smoke, but it can also alert us to dinner or to the beautiful aroma of flowers. Like sound, it takes our aesthetic experience to a higher level. Some common aesthetic qualities of smell include: sweet, fruity, fragrant, pungent, chemical, woody, minty. When it comes to food, our sense of taste is arguably the most important aesthetic sense but vision, smell, touch and even sound can all play and important part.

Eating is definitely a 4D experience of the senses. Aesthetic qualities of taste include: umami, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, texture, pungency. Now that you have a better understanding of the qualities used in aesthetics across all our senses.

Balance creates stability and sense of equilibrium and is usually achieved through symmetry, asymmetry and radial symmetry. Rhythm is used to create a sense of action. Often used to draw your eye in a certain direction or give the feeling of movement. Pattern and repetition are used to create visual tempo and beat.

Patterns can be organic and free flowing or geometric. Unity and harmony is achieved when elements are combined in a way that accents their similarities.

Can be created through color and other elements that compliment each other. Your blog is a blessing! Just what I need! Thank you so much! What is Aesthetics? Order literature by: Most shared in this topic Latest UX literature in this topic Please check the value and try again. User Experience and Experience Design. I open my eyes. Lush light floods the room, birds chatter. It is only o'clock in the morning, but I feel well-reste Book chapter.

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Aesthetic Computing. The phrase "Aesthetic Computing" while taken literally applies the philosophical area of aesthetics to the field of comp Book chapter.