The Role of Aesthetics in Intentions to Use Digital Health Interventions

Digital interventions are increasingly recognised as cost-effective treatment solutions for a number of health concerns, but adoption and use of these interventions can be low, affecting outcomes. This research sought to identify how individual aesthetic facets and perceived trust may influence perceptions toward and intentions to use an online health intervention by building on the Technology Acceptance Model, where perceived attractiveness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment are thought to predict behavioural intentions towards a website. An online questionnaire study assessed perceptions of nine stimuli varying in four aesthetic facets (simplicity, diversity, colour & craftsmanship), utilising a quasi-experimental within-subjects design with a repetition among three different groups: individuals from the general population who were shown stimuli referring to general health (GP-H) (N = 257); individuals experiencing an eating disorder and shown stimuli referring to eating disorders (ED-ED) (N = 109); and individuals from the general population who were shown stimuli referring to eating disorders (GP-ED) (N = 235). Linear mixed models demonstrated that perceptions of simplicity and craftsmanship significantly influenced perceptions of usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment and trust, which in turn influenced behavioural intentions. This study demonstrates that developing the TAM model to add a further construct of perceived trust could be beneficial for digital health intervention developers. In this study, simplicity and craftsmanship were identified as the aesthetic facets with the greatest impact on user perceptions of digital health interventions.Author summary: Digital health interventions are playing a growing role in health care for a wide range of health conditions. However, people do not always engage with these interventions as much as might be hoped for. In this study we looked at a specific factor that might influence the user’s first impressions of digital health interventions, and in turn how much they will use them; aesthetic design. By building on an existing model of user acceptance of digital technology, we explored the elements of aesthetic design that are most important in influencing positive judgements when different groups of people access different digital health interventions. We found that using designs that look simple and professional improved user’s judgements of how useful and trustworthy the intervention is, how easy and enjoyable it is to use, and how likely they would be to use it. This work is intended to help guide future developers to create digital health interventions that are both visually appealing and engaging to users.