The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light.
In this research, led by Joni Salminen, we investigate how the WIBIG effect applies to user personas, measuring designers’ perceptions and task performance when employing user personas for the design of information technology (IT) solutions.
In a user experiment, the authors tested six different personas with 235 participants that were asked to develop remote work solutions based on their interaction with a fictitious user persona.
The findings show that:
- A user persona’s perceived attractiveness was positively correlated with other perceptions of the persona. The personas’ completeness, credibility, empathy, likability, and usefulness increased with attractiveness.
- More attractive personas were also perceived as more agreeable, emotionally stable, extraverted and open, and the participants spent more time engaging with personas they perceived attractive.
- The IT solutions created for more attractive user personas demonstrated a higher degree of affect, but for the most part, task outputs did not vary by the personas’ perceived attractiveness.
- The perceived attractiveness of a user persona can impact how designers interact with and engage with the persona, which can influence the quality, or the type of IT solutions created based on the persona.
Findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction.
Salminen, J., Santos, J., Jung, S.G., and Jansen, B. J. (2023) How Does an Imaginary Persona’s Attractiveness Affect Designers’ Perceptions and IT Solutions? An Experimental Study on Users’ Remote Working Needs. Information Technology and People. 36( 8), p. 196-225. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-09-2022-0729