Picture perfect: Girls’ and boys’ preferences towards visual complexity in children’s websites

• Published in: Computers in human behavior Vol. 31; pp. 551 - 557
• Main Author: Hsiu-Feng, Wang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2014
• Subjects: Aesthetic preference; Children; Children’s website; Complexity; Gender; Girls; Learning; Low level; Stimuli; Visual; Visual complexity; Websites; Aesthetic preference; Visual complexity; Gender; Children; Children’s website
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.033

•We examine girls’ and boys’ aesthetic preferences to visual complexity in websites.•We apply Berlyne’s theory to visual complexity and children’s preferences.•Overall, children prefer websites with a medium level of visual complexity.•Separately, boys prefer a high level of visual complexity and girls do not. This experiment examined children’s aesthetic preferences for websites designed for them. It applied Berlyne’s theory of aesthetic preference to these websites: a theory that suggests that people prefer a medium level of stimuli to a low or high level of stimuli. The experiment used a 2×3 between-subject design and involved 45 boys and 45 girls. In the experiment the children were asked to rate 12 children’s learning websites for aesthetic preference. The websites had been classified according to whether they displayed a high, medium or low level of visual complexity. The results of the experiment showed that overall the children preferred websites that displayed a medium level of visual complexity to those that displayed a high or low level of visual complexity. Thus the results supported Berlyne’s theory. However, when the children’s ratings were analysed with respect to their gender, it was found that the boys preferred a high level of visual complexity and the girls preferred a medium or low level of visual complexity. In other words, Berlyne’s theory was partly supported. Further analysis revealed other gender related aesthetic preferences. This paper should be of interest to anyone who designs learning websites for children.