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.

摘要

用户界面通常使用原始自然环境的图像，即使系统的目的和上下文与自然无关。在本文中，我们以进化心理学为基础，开发了一个理论模型，用于研究自然意象在企业销售环境中对用户信任感、视觉美感和购买意愿的影响。我们通过在线实验评估我们的模型（n = 408) 使用具有不同自然图像配置的网站。结果为我们的理论模型提供了支持，从而证实了自然存在的积极影响，即网站允许用户在信任、视觉美感和购买意图上体验自然环境的程度。因此，用户对自然存在的感知与描绘水和植被的自然图像特别相关。这项研究加深了我们对现场图像的环境背景如何为用户带来微妙的信息处理优势的理解。对于从业者来说，这项研究提供了对可以在企业界面设计中更有效地利用的图像类型的洞察力。