Nature imagery in user interface design: the influence on user perceptions of trust and aesthetics

ABSTRACT

User interfaces often utilise imagery of pristine natural environments, even if the system’s purpose and context are unrelated to nature. In this paper, we build on evolutionary psychology to develop a theoretical model for the influence of nature imagery on user perceptions of trust, visual aesthetics, and purchase intentions in a corporate sales setting. We evaluate our model by means of an online experiment (n = 408) using a website with different configurations of nature imagery. The results provide support for our theoretical model and hence confirm a positive influence of nature presence, that is, the extent to which the website allows a user to experience the natural environment as being present, on trust, visual aesthetics, and purchase intentions. Thereby, user perceptions of nature presence are specifically linked to nature imagery depicting water as well as vegetation. This study furthers our understanding of how the environmental context of on-site imagery can have subtle information processing benefits for users. For practitioners this study offers insight to the types of imagery that could be utilised more effectively in corporate interface designs.

KEYWORDS:

• Nature imagery
• perceived aesthetics
• trust
• user interface design

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 We follow the explanations of Ulrich (1993) and define water as being a natural source of water, whether in lake, river, stream, or ocean form, vegetation as being any form of ‘green or somewhat verdant’ vegetation in comparison to vegetation indicative of desert or arid environments. We use the term vantage to describe the open savanna-like environments Ulrich argues as evolutionarily preferential compared to spatially restricted environments. High vantage is practically demonstrated by visual access to the horizon and low vantage is demonstrated by an obstructed foreground in an image.

2 Alpha amplitudes are a measure of idle visual cortex activity and indicator of cognitive arousal. Lower arousal, and feelings of wakeful relaxation are indicated by higher alpha amplitudes (Ulrich 1981).