Visual Intelligence and Mood in Visual Communication Design

Human-centered design approaches are intended to provide designers with tools to improve the interaction between design objects and their human users. Often, the design principles of these approaches try to cover broad human requirements, but not particular human differences relevant to use and communication. This paper is a study of visual intelligence and mood as two of the major hypothesized human differences for visual communication design. Evidence shows that visual intelligence predicts adequate interaction patterns and that two dimensions of mood – high tense arousal and anger/frustration – negatively affect the interaction with visual information. The data also suggests that mood change might be negatively associated with interaction experience, showing that mood effects have the potential to be used as a measurement of interaction design quality.