Look & Feel

Branding and the visual appearance are usually the first aspect of a user interface that people notice. These two elements together create a persona, or environmental atmosphere, for the product. Whether it's a website or an auto, this part of the product tends to elict emotional responses in the users.

This manipulation of the emotions is all too obvious in some forms of branding - for example, auto TV commercials. Style, color, mood, setting, among other aspects, are powerful influences used to sway consumer buying habits. Although style may often be the major factor in a consumer's choice to purchase a product, it is the usability of the product that provides a pleasant or unpleasant experience for the user. Your new car may be beautiful, but if you can't figure out how to start it, you won't be a happy customer.

Apple Computer lead the way in the computer industry in the development of visually compelling user interfaces. They created the first truly user-friendly GUI (graphic user interface), and introduced mouse-driven interactions. The visual style of Mac software has also been innovative. The bright colors and the gel-appearance of the iMacs and the Aqua interface greatly influenced the visual style of many types of products.

In contrast to the visually-rich appearance of the Mac OS, Microsoft Windows OS visual style was considered more geared toward business users. This began to change with the appearance of Windows XP, and now Microsoft is introducing Vista, their newest OS which closely resembles many style aspects of Apple's Aqua.

The visual style of an application or a website can dramatically alter the user's perception of it. •