The interplay between web aesthetics and accessibility
Abstract
Visual aesthetics enhances user experience in the context of the World Wide Web (Web). Accordingly, many studies report positive relationships between Web aesthetics and facets of user experience like usability and credibility, but does this hold for accessibility also? This paper describes an empirical investigation towards this end. The aesthetic judgements of 30 sighted Web users were elicited to understand what types of Web design come across as being visually pleasing. Participants judged 50 homepages based on Lavie and Tractinsky's classical and expressive Web aesthetics framework. A cross-section of the homepages were then manually audited for accessibility compliance by 11 Web accessibility experts who used a heuristic evaluation technique known as the Barrier Walkthrough (BW) method to check for accessibility barriers that could affect people with visual impairments. Web pages judged on the classical dimension as being visually clean showed significant correlations with accessibility, suggesting that visual cleanness may be a suitable proxy measure for accessibility as far as people with visual impairments are concerned. Expressive designs and other aesthetic dimensions showed no such correlation, however, demonstrating that an expressive or aesthetically pleasing Web design is not a barrier to accessibility.
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Visual cleanness correlates with accessible content, whereas other dimensions such as expressive design seem to be neither a benefit nor a barrier to web accessibility.
“investigations regarding the relationship between web accessibility and the visual aesthetic of websites show that visual cleanness correlates with accessible content, whereas other dimensions, such as expressive design, seem to be neither a benefit nor a barrier to web accessibility (Mbipom and Harper, 2011).”
From How compliance with web accessibility standards shapes the experiences of users with and without disabilities (2023) · cites this paper as Mbipom and Harper, 2011
Restrictions on contrast and the use of colour are perceived as compromising the visual design.
“Often named fears refer to the restrictions on contrast and the use of colour, which are perceived as compromising the visual design (Mbipom and Harper, 2011; Petrie et al., 2004).”
From How compliance with web accessibility standards shapes the experiences of users with and without disabilities (2023) · cites this paper as Mbipom and Harper, 2011
Cites
Web Accessibility Testing: When the Method Is the Culprit
Brajnik, G. (2006) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/11788713_24 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Tension, what tension?: Website accessibility and visual design
Petrie, H., Hamilton, F., & King, N. (2004) · Proceedings of the international cross-disciplinary workshop on Web accessibility - W4A · doi:10.1145/990657.990660 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
How much does expertise matter?: a barrier walkthrough study with experts and non-experts
Yesilada, Y., Brajnik, G., & Harper, S. (2009) · Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility · doi:10.1145/1639642.1639678 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
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Vollenwyder, B., Petralito, S., Iten, G. H., Brühlmann, F., Opwis, K., & Mekler, E. D. (2023) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102956 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Salient beliefs influencing the intention to consider Web Accessibility
Vollenwyder, B., Iten, G. H., Brühlmann, F., Opwis, K., & Mekler, E. D. (2019) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.11.016 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
- Authors
- Mbipom, G., & Harper, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Manchester (GB)
- ORCID
- Harper, Simon
- Venue
- The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2011-10-24
- Pages
- 147-154
- OpenAlex
- W2009291434
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 1.28
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- web aesthetics, web accessibility, visual impairment, homepage design, accessibility compliance, heuristic evaluation, user experience, usability, credibility
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