A Quantitative Approach to Measure Webpage Aesthetics

Aesthetics measurement is important in determining and improving the usability of a webpage. Wireframe models, the collection of the rectangular objects, can approximate the size and positions of the different webpage elements. The positional geometry of these objects is primarily responsible for determining aesthetics as shown in studies. In this work, the authors propose a computational model for predicting webpage aesthetics based on the positional geometry features. In this study, the authors found that ten out of the thirteen reported features are statistically significant for webpage aesthetics. Using these ten features, the authors developed a computational model for webpage aesthetics prediction. The model works on the basis of support vector regression. The authors rated the wireframe models of 209 webpages by 150 participants. The average users' ratings and the ten significant features' values were used to train and test the aesthetics prediction model. Five-fold cross-validation technique shows the model can predict aesthetics with a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of only 0.42.