BeauVis: A Validated Scale for Measuring the Aesthetic Pleasure of Visual Representations

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

We developed and validated a rating scale to assess the aesthetic pleasure (or beauty) of a visual data representation: the BeauVis scale. With our work we offer researchers and practitioners a simple instrument to compare the visual appearance of different visualizations, unrelated to data or context of use. Our rating scale can, for example, be used to accompany results from controlled experiments or be used as informative data points during in-depth qualitative studies. Given the lack of an aesthetic pleasure scale dedicated to visualizations, researchers have mostly chosen their own terms to study or compare the aesthetic pleasure of visualizations. Yet, many terms are possible and currently no clear guidance on their effectiveness regarding the judgment of aesthetic pleasure exists. To solve this problem, we engaged in a multi-step research process to develop the first validated rating scale specifically for judging the aesthetic pleasure of a visualization (osf.io/fxs76). Our final BeauVis scale consists of five items, 'enjoyable,' 'likable,' 'pleasing,' 'nice,' and 'appealing.' Beyond this scale itself, we contribute (a) a systematic review of the terms used in past research to capture aesthetics, (b) an investigation with visualization experts who suggested terms to use for judging the aesthetic pleasure of a visualization, and (c) a confirmatory survey in which we used our terms to study the aesthetic pleasure of a set of 3 visualizations.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)363-373
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics
Volume29 (2023)
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 36155461
ORCID /0000-0002-2176-876X/work/159171483

Keywords

Keywords

  • aesthetic pleasure, Aesthetics, scale development, validated scale, visual representations

Library keywords