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Pleasant aesthetic experiences result in positive interactions with interfaces (Bhandari et al., 2019), giving users an immediate and long-term feeling that software systems are helpful and easy to use (Norman, 2002; Tractinsky et al., 2006; Tuch et al., 2012), even when they offer poor usability (Anderson, 2011; Bhandari et al., 2019). Furthermore, perceived visual aesthetics often determine if a system will be adopted or avoided in favor of its competition (Lu et al., 2014; Schenkman & Jönsson, 2000; Tractinsky, 2013). When it comes to the commercial success of mobile apps, visual aesthetics becomes essential because the first impression of visual design is often decisive in the choice between downloading an app or not from the millions available at each app store (Bhandari et al., 2019; Moran et al., 2018).
Visual aesthetics refers to the beauty of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of interactive software systems and has been increasingly recognized as an essential factor in their perceived usability, credibility, and overall appraisal (Hamborg et al., 2014; Tuch et al., 2012), making it an integral part of their quality (ISO/IEC 25010:2011, 2011; Tractinsky et al., 2000). That also applies to mobile applications, as the most popular ones feature beautiful GUIs besides being intuitive and easy to use (Moran et al., 2018). But although adherence to design principles helps create beautiful GUIs (Schlatter & Levinson, 2013; Stone et al., 2005), visual aesthetics is highly subjective (Palmer et al., 2013), which means that one needs to know how people perceive it to assess it.
Although the understanding of beauty has varied along with history (Lavie & Tractinsky, 2004) and even today still generates intense debate (Sartwell, 2017; Zangwill, 2021), here we adopt the definition of GUI visual aesthetics as “the degree to which user interface enables pleasing and satisfying interaction for the user” (ISO/IEC 25010:2011, 2011). Following this definition, we understand that beauty derives from the observed object but it is also the result of the observer's emotions. In other words, the visual aesthetics perception arises from the interaction of the objective properties of GUIs, such as the use of colors or layout, with the subjective constituents of the users, like cultural background or personal experiences. That way, not only should GUI designs adhere to principles that contribute to visual aesthetics but also be meaningful for their users (Soui et al., 2021).