The Effect of Affect: The Hedonomic Evaluation of Human-Computer Interaction

We evaluated the use of color in a human-computer interface to investigate how affective cues influence usability judgments. Yellow and green, were found to enhance performance on a cognitive flexibility task as compared to white and gray. Such an outcome suggests that color promotes positive affect. The aesthetically designed interface that promoted positive affect was also found to enhance perceptions of interface usability. This relationship, however, was only found when underlying usability was effective. When usability was poor, aesthetics made users more cognizant of the usability weaknesses. The results suggest that designers consider incorporating color into designs to help elicit positive emotion in users but that they must be aware that incorporation of aesthetics comes with the potential cost of disposing users to be more discerning of usability.