VP #5 - Design - Psych / Bio / Math /
BE (ALMOST) SYMMETRICAL / KEEP IT EVEN-STEVEN
Increase Visual Appeal by Ensuring Symmetry...
Evidence that people are more sexually attracted to physically symmetrical partners
Geometrical Principles from the Golden Ratio.
BE (ALMOST) SYMMETRICAL / KEEP IT EVEN-STEVEN
Increase Visual Appeal by Ensuring Symmetry...
Evidence that people are more sexually attracted to physically symmetrical partners
Geometrical Principles from the Golden Ratio.
If I ask you to guess what the most attractive facial feature is in the opposite sex based on actual research, what would be your answer?
If you're a man, the answer you just gave might include "soft lips" or "good skin." If you're a woman, your answer might have been something akin to a "manly nose," "straight eyebrows," or - a classic favorite among females - "strong cheek bones." So, which is it?
Funnily enough, the correct answer is neither of the above.
To get a better understanding of this, direct your gaze to the two drawings above where the answer to what woman is more physically attractive should be no contest.
One (left) is good-looking according to what men claim is attractive in their own words. The other (right) is "moderately" good-looking (whatever that means) based on what men say they prefer a woman to look like, but with one (surprisingly) massive advantage: her features are symmetrical.
Now, be honest with yourself: Which of the two is more aesthetically appealing? Is it the "textbook beautiful" woman with moderate symmetry, or the moderately good-looking woman whose facial proportions are near-perfect based on mathematical accuracy?
If you answered the one to the right, you're not just in the majority - you're in the overwhelming majority. And no - neither you, nor your average Joe - has lost their mind in making that assessment. So, why is that?
As with so many other things in life, the reason you made the conclusion you did is because in judging what's more beautiful, it's the subconscious - not the conscious - that decides the rules according to which the game is played. And because the human mind just so happens to put more stock into deep-rooted mathematical symmetry than superficial visuals, it's the former that wins out.
Had it been the case that this uncanny discovery is exclusively confined to how someone looks and the way they are perceived based on it, this observation quite frankly wouldn't matter much.
But because the phenomenon is highly applicable to other forms of art, including - you guessed it, UI/UX design - you're in luck; it does matter, and can, in fact, be absolutely pivotal.
If you're designing a screen for a mobile app that features a dashboard with horizontal margins of 8 pixels on each side, don't randomly divert from using that pixel count on your vertical margins.
And if you DO need them to be smaller or larger, please - for the love of God - do not make them 3 or 7 pixels. Instead, make your measurement on that is evenly divisible or multipliable, such as 2, 4 or 16 - I think you catch my drift.
In your own conscious mind, it might not make that much of a difference. But in the subconscious mind of your user - you know, the part of the mind that truly decides whether someone likes or dislikes what they're experiencing - it does.
Oh, and one more thing: utilizing mathematival symmetry and proportions in your UI/UX designs isn't just a surefire way to ensure pretty aesthetics.
It's also a way to ensure the development team you're working with won't want to strangle you once you hand over a project file that - albeit replete many good ideas - can't be converted into practically useful code.