On July 29, 2021, Bethany Welgoss, MA successfully defended her master thesis entitled “It’s ugly. That’s why it works beautifully: An exploratory study using design strategies to violate aesthetic principles as means to influence usage behaviors”. The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Manoj Thomas of SC Johnson College of Business.
Abstract
This thesis explores how aesthetic violation can be used to influence a user’s behavior when interacting with a product. Aesthetic violation occurs when the elements of a design purposely deviate from the aesthetic expectations of the user in order to encourage a behavioral response. This draws from the theory of processing fluency, which suggests that aesthetic perceptions are a function of a perceiver’s processing dynamics—the more fluently a perceiver can process an object, the higher the aesthetic response. In this instance, the desire for fluent processing may incite users to escape, minimize, or counteract the violation. A literature review and two workshops were conducted: (1) to generate design strategies and (2) to assess and refine them. The workshops provided insights into the benefits and relevance of aesthetic violation, strategy formation, and integration into the design process.