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Beyond Beauty: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Aesthetics in HCI

Published: 08 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

The word aesthetics, as used in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), tends to refer to visual characteristics of an interface. Furthermore, it is broadly taken to mean beauty, which, while a significant aspect of aesthetics, is not its only concern. Unfortunately, HCI tends to hold a narrow-sighted view of the topic that often ignores a rich history of discourse. Aesthetics is a key concern of philosophy, considering our perception of the natural and artefactual world. In more recent times, it has grown to consider all of our sensory perceptions of the world around us, where our encounters with everyday objects and environments are two areas of interest. Here, I explain how HCI describes aesthetics and give an overview of philosophical approaches to aesthetics, show where some common ground lies between the two, and suggest how aesthetic categorisations could work for artefacts in HCI.

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
May 2021
2965 pages
ISBN:9781450380959
DOI:10.1145/3411763
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 08 May 2021

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Author Tags

  1. aesthetic experience
  2. aesthetics
  3. art
  4. beauty
  5. embodiment
  6. everyday aesthetics
  7. ontology
  8. philosophy

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  • (2024)Social Robot Design and the Aesthetics of ImperfectionHumane Autonomous Technology10.1007/978-3-031-66528-8_9(199-232)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2024
  • (2023)"\"See the Place with Different Eyes\": Fostering Empathy by Communicating Spatial Experience"Proceedings of the 6th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3627611.3627612(1-13)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2023
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  • (2022)The Doctrine of the Mean: Chinese Calligraphy with Moderate Visual Complexity Elicits High Aesthetic PreferenceInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2022.214486440:6(1355-1368)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2022

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