Wholesomeness in Design.
You Need to Know What makes a website

I have being carrying out various research on the connection between visual design and usability. I always wanted to know what we need to focus on . If we should concentrate more on making our design more usable or we focus on making it visually appealing. There has always been an unending debate on which to focus on. so i decided to research which i should focus on as a user experience and interaction designer. And below are my findings documented in my yet to be published Work“ The user experience cheat Sheet’’ where i jotted down some research work. although, this is an excerpt from the documentation.
During a 2003 interview for the New York Times, Steve Jobs presented his interviewer with one of the most quotable lines of his career: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works too.”. This quote since, has been applied to the world of User experience (UX) regularly. how it feels like is not far more important than how it works to create a perfect website, the two must be in perfect harmony and they are relevant when talking about ux design. this two can also be seen as
aesthetics and usability.
But, firstly, some definitions:
USABILITY (EASE OF USE)
This focuses on how easy it is for the user to complete their desired task with your product(website). To say a product is easy to use, there are certain usability metrics to measure.
1.How easy it is to learn the website
2.How Efficient is it to use
3.Is the website memorable
4. Is it prone to errors
5. Is it satisfactory?
these questions helps us understand if a website is usable.
AESTHETICS (VISUAL DESIGN)
This focuses on how your product is designed visually to appeal to a user through its perceived beauty.This could also be the science of how things are known via our senses. Its more than just visual design but anything that appeals to the senses, what we hear,see, taste and feel. More about psychological responses.

As important as usability is to web design, you cant separate usability from visual design.Human centered design expert Don Norman goes into details about the importance of aesthetics and its function to enhance usability in Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better. His book, Emotion design is devoted to the matter.
A study on the role of aesthetics in the book, Do “Attractive Things Work Better”? An Exploration of Search Tool Visualisations concludes that, though attractive things may not score higher in performance, people perceive attractive things as more usable.
Also,Stanford University conducted a study with 2500+ participants on how people assess the credibility of a website. The findings prove the importance of visual design: “Nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes. Beautiful graphic design will not salvage a poorly functioning Web site. Yet, the study shows a clear link between solid design and site credibility.” — from the Stanford Credibility Project.
There is such a thing as wholesomeness when it comes to design of web application and its how web Aesthetics works in hand with usability to enhance the experience of the user on the website. How a user thinks cannot be seperated totally from how that user feels.And every user experience designer or as one (developer,designer or Business Professional) who want to apply Ux thinking must consider every human stimulus that can influence interaction with your product.
In the article in defense of eye candy by stephen.p.Anderson , he gave a clear example of this point using personality as what influences our perception of people and how quickly we form expectations about them. Similarly, the Ui design decision we make, creates and shapes the personality of our product and largly forms an expectation from the users.
He also listed why we should care about product personality:
People identify with (or avoid) certain personalities.
Trust is related to personality.
Perception and expectations are linked with personality.
Consumers “choose” products that are an extension of themselves.
We treat sufficiently advanced technology as though it were human.

You need to see Visual Aesthetics and usability as an one indivisible strategy for web design. Just as a well designed website cannot work well if it difficult for users to use, so a poorly design website might hinder users from trying out your website to experience how easy it is to use. Norman offers an explanation, citing evolutionary biology and what we know about how our brains work. Basically, when we are relaxed, our brains are more flexible and more likely to find workarounds to difficult problems. In contrast, when we are frustrated and tense, our brains get a sort of tunnel vision where we only see the problem in front of us. How many times, in a fit of frustration, have you tried the same thing over and over again, hoping it would somehow work the seventeenth time around?
Another explanation: We want those things we find pleasing to succeed. We’re more tolerant of problems with things that we find attractive.(stephen.p.Anderson)
Two things you should have in mind when thinking of Aesthetics and usability. think of Aesthetics as a Pull strategy in design. it attracts and pulls people towards your website by giving them a feeling of ease and comfort to try it out. And think of Usability as a Keep strategy in design. it creates a feeling of satisfaction and achievement in users creating a habit loop to keep them coming again as they can easily navigate and carryout their task with ease. that’s what you need to look out for, a wholesome website where is not just what it looks like and feels like, but how it works too.

