EIVAA: Empirical Investigation of Visual Aesthetics and Accessibility

Empirical research suggests that the use of visual aesthetics influences the way people perceive and interact with the World Wide Web (Web). This is not very surprising when we think about the fact that the Web is predominantly a visual medium. What is rather perplexing is some of the strong relationships that have been found to exist between visual aesthetics and certain aspects of user experience (UX), like usability and credibility. Unfortunately, the impact of visual aesthetics on accessibility or ease-of-use for people with disabilities is one area that has not benefited much from empirical research in the context of the Web. Accessibility is an emerging and equally important aspect of user experience. Although visual aesthetics has been found to have positive relationships with other facets of user experience, it is speculated to hinder people with disabilities from effectively using the Web for their information needs, especially those with visual impairments. In the EIVAA project, we propose to investigate the link between visual aesthetics and Web accessibility with the goal of supporting the delivery of aesthetic and accessible Web contents.

Objectives

1. Determine the type of Web contents/designs that come across to users as visually pleasing via user studies
2. Examine Web pages resulting from (1) for accessibility using various means including technical evaluations, expert reviews, and user studies
3. Develop a framework which is able to automatically evaluate Web content for its aesthetic quality in relation to accessibility