Abstract
This study considers visual aesthetics as a significant contributor to involving the user in online visual communication. It argues that religious websites as an online environment require attention to the impressive communication process. In this study, we focus on how Christian and Islamic religious websites use the five visual aesthetic facets, including Simplicity, Diversity (visual richness), Colourfulness, Typography, and Image on homepages. To address this issue, 10 Christian and Islamic religious websites are selected from the Alexa top religious websites. Using a descriptive-analytics approach, evaluation of visual aesthetics is conducted through a checklist based on the theoretical and empirical literature reviewed on visual aesthetics and website design. It is included some criteria about visual aesthetic items in web design. The results show that Christian and Islamic religious websites have different types of visual aesthetics. Furthermore, Christian websites with high simplicity, low diversity, paying attention to the colour factor, appropriate typography and high-quality images, received the highest overall aesthetics ratings. While Islamic websites, with low simplicity, low diversity, little attention to the colour and typography characteristics, as well as low-quality images, received the low scores.
Highlights
Increasing the presence of religions online makes it important to address the factors affecting the users of these online environments to improve online activities
The five factors include Simplicity, Diversity, Colour, Typography, and Image. It makes the following two contributions: (1): By examining the factors on two different types of religious websites, we achieve a better understanding via compare how well they applied on these websites. (2): From a practical point of view, our findings may help as a starting point for research on visual aesthetics to practice in designing and developing the quality of religious websites
The measures of three aesthetic factors such as Simplicity, Diversity, Colourfulness were adapted from Aesthetics of Website Inventory (VisAWI), (Moshagen & Thielsch, 2010) and two factors such as Typography and Image were from visual aesthetics factors in web design (Bearid & George, 2014)
Summary
In designing a website besides content and usability, aesthetic factors are important, in this way, on informational websites, the relation between aesthetics and user satisfaction is strong (Douneva, Jaron & Thielsch, 2016). The aim is to identify and examine differences between visual aesthetic factors on Christian and Islamic religious websites. It is done through an analysis of the visual aesthetic factors presence on selected websites. The five factors include Simplicity, Diversity, Colour, Typography, and Image Through this research, it makes the following two contributions: (1): By examining the factors on two different types of religious websites, we achieve a better understanding via compare how well they applied on these websites. It makes the following two contributions: (1): By examining the factors on two different types of religious websites, we achieve a better understanding via compare how well they applied on these websites. (2): From a practical point of view, our findings may help as a starting point for research on visual aesthetics to practice in designing and developing the quality of religious websites
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