Visual diversity and user interface quality

Live graphical user interfaces (GUIs) do change responding to user actions, unlike GUI screenshots, which are often used in studies. The user experiences and is affected by transitions between the layouts (e.g., webpages or mobile app screens) of interactive systems. Such transitions affect the overall impression of system quality and should be accounted for by any model or computational method estimating the quality and claiming high ecological validity. However, the recent efforts aspiring to predict GUI quality computationally have only relied on homepages or home screens of apps, or their screenshots. The dynamics of GUI -- GUI change across pages and layouts, or shorter, visual diversity -- have been given little attention. Here we present an initial exploration of GUI visual diversity. In three studies, we demonstrate that a) GUI diversity can be measured computationally; b) GUI diversity correlates with GUI aesthetics impression and other, more high-level GUI-preference constructs; and c) GUI diversity matters in both website and mobile app contexts. We believe the concept of GUI visual diversity deserves further studies.