Evaluation and Improvement of Interface Aesthetics with an Interactive Genetic Algorithm

The goal of this research is to examine the effectiveness of the interactive genetic algorithm (IGA) procedure in evaluating and improving interface aesthetics. Though the procedure has been adopted by a few other researchers in investigating preference or in design scenarios, its ability to improve subject's preference has not been demonstrated quantitatively, particularly for the outcome measure of aesthetic appeal. Two experiments are presented that use identical IGA characteristics to help subjects choose a good design quickly from a large design space. The first experiment uses abstract imageries as stimuli, and the second uses Web page templates for a Web log. The statistical evaluation of the IGA illustrates that it is effective in both cases, showing an 8% increase in aesthetic appeal for abstract imagery and a 15% increase for the Web pages over the duration of the IGA procedure.