Designing Interfaces, 3rd Edition

Chapter 5. Visual Style and Aesthetics

“Never underestimate the power of beauty.”

Visual design is more than just “skinning a user interface”; visual design and look-and-feel, done well, can make a digital product stand out. The visual language used in any given interface conveys the attitude and spirit of your brand, and stands as an avatar of it across various touchpoints. Visual design can make or break the usability of a product and trust in your brand.

In 2002, a research group discovered something interesting. The Stanford Web Credibility Project set out to learn what causes people to trust or distrust websites. Much of what they found made intuitive sense: company reputation, customer service, sponsorships, and ads all helped users decide whether a website is credible.

But the most important factor—number one on their list—was the appearance of the website. Users did not trust sites that looked amateurish. Sites that made the effort to craft a nice, professionally designed look made a lot more headway with users, even if those users had few other reasons to trust the site.

What was true then is true now; looking good matters.

True beauty is the combination of the physical form and desired function operating together in harmony. In digital design, it is not enough that each pixel is perfect but it also must add usefulness, understanding, or delight and often a combination of all three.

In this chapter, we go over the core elements of visual design and discuss what makes ...