Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Practically, Aesthetics Is Here to Stay
The idea that style overcomes substance or influences perceptions of seemingly unrelated attrib-
utes of people, objects, or interactive systems may sound appalling. We can argue the ethical/moral
aspects of such an idea, but we cannot deny its existence, nor can we ignore the positive effects of
aesthetics on our well-being (cf. Norman, 2004a; Isen, 2001). But, more importantly, we cannot
ignore the fact that aesthetic issues have become more pervasive than they used to be. Postrel
(2002) argues that “sensory appeals are everywhere, they are increasingly personalized, and they
are intensifying” (p. 5). According to Postrel, today's aesthetics pleases and liberates the masses.
Probably as a result of all of the previous arguments, aesthetics appears to be increasing in supply
and demand, fueled to a large extent by information technology.
IT is increasingly becoming a vehicle to provide aesthetics; in fact, one of the unintended results
of IT is that it is particularly friendly to aesthetic applications. Users can create, edit, transmit, and
receive aesthetic designs in almost any imaginable domain. One of the major genres of visual aes-
thetics—photography—is gradually becoming dominated by information technology. Digital cine-
matography follows suit. The animation industry transformed itself from drawing flip topics by hand
to relying heavily on IT in less than ten years (Olsen, 2004), and the worldwide market for digital ani-
mation is worth about $70 billion, according to current estimates (Hiscock, 2004). Designers in
industries such as fashion, mass media, art, business documents, and Web development are equipped
with applications that offer many more design options, and much more time to explore them. In a
sense, CAD applications are to the designer what DSS are to a decision maker: they relieve designers
from tedious work, allowing them to explore, experiment, and finally implement new designs while
considerably expediting the design life cycle. In other words, IT increases society's creative potential.
The role of IT in establishing the pervasiveness of aesthetics in today's business world is
described by Schroeder (2002), who argues that “Web design has brought visual issues into the
mainstream of strategic thinking … The Web mandates visualizing almost every aspect of corpo-
rate strategy, operations and communication” (p. 22). Moreover, Postrel (2002) suggests that “the
computer-driven democratization of design has made more people sensitive to graphic quality.
Bit by bit, the general public has learned the literal and metaphorical language of graphic design.
Carried by computers, aesthetics has spread to places and professions that were formerly off-
limits to any such frivolity” (p. 55). An aesthetic cycle is in the working, where aesthetic supply
creates more demand, which in turn feeds even more supply. “Over time people learn. They dis-
cover more about what's aesthetically possible and more about what they like” (p. 55). And the
more aesthetically aware people become, the greater their need for aesthetics.
TOWARD A RESEARCH AGENDA OF AESTHETICS IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Two broad approaches dominate the study of aesthetics: philosophical, or top-down, inquiries, and
empirical, or bottom-up, studies. Both approaches have mostly relied on the studies of available con-
temporaneous stimuli such as works of art, natural and constructed landscapes, architectural work,
and other artifacts. In line with this manuscript's reliance on mainly empirical evidence as a basis
for its major premise, this section concentrates on measurable and testable research ideas. Lavie
and Tractinsky (2004) classified much of the empirical research on aesthetics as belonging to either
the “experimentalist” or the “exploratory” traditions (see also Porteous, 1996). To some extent, the
two methods reflect a philosophical debate over whether aesthetics lies in the object or in the viewer.
Traditionally, studies of the first type attempt to test hypotheses about the effects of isolated
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