Title: Is an anthropomorphic app icon more attractive than a non-anthropomorphic one? A case study using multimodal measurement

Authors: Yaqin Cao; Robert W. Proctor; Yi Ding; Vincent G. Duffy; Yun Zhang; Xuefeng Zhang

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China ' Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA ' School of Economics and Management, Anhui Polytechnic University, No. 8, Beijing Middle Road, Jiujiang District, Wuhu 241000, China ' School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA ' School of Economics and Management, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China ' School of Economics and Management, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China

Abstract: This study investigates how an anthropomorphic app icon affects users' responses from an emotional standpoint. The design is a case-study/laboratory experiment in which 50 participants evaluated a commercially available weather app icon that had facial features (with an anthropomorphic appearance) and the same app icon but without the facial features (non-anthropomorphic appearance). The participants also selected one of the two apps presented on a mock app download interface. Multimodal measurement was used to measure users' responses, including: 1) subjective emotional experiences; 2) attitudes; 3) pupil dilation and facial electromyographic responses; 4) app-selection responses. The relationship between the anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic weather app icon designs and users' responses were analysed. Results showed that the anthropomorphic app icon induced positive emotions, enhanced favourable attitudes, and was selected for downloading more often than the non-anthropomorphic one. An implication is that weather app icons, and probably other icons, should be designed using anthropomorphic elements to attract users.

Keywords: Android; affective reaction; anthropomorphism; app icon; app selection; emotion experience; facial EMG; facial features; multimodal measurement; pupil dilation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2022.123789

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2022 Vol.20 No.4, pp.419 - 439

Received: 03 Mar 2020
Accepted: 31 Oct 2020
Published online: 04 Jul 2022 *

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