Towards Customized Emotional Design: An Explorative Study of User Personality and User Interface Skin Preferences

Two key elements in the area of cognitive ergonomics are user-system performance and the user similarity. However, with the introduction of skinnable user interfaces, a technology that gives the user interface a chameleon-like ability, elements such as aesthetic, fun, and especially user individuality and identity become more important. This paper presents two explorative studies on user personality in relation to skin preferences. In the studies participants were asked to rate their preference of a set of Windows Media Player skins and to complete the BIS/BAS and the IPIP-NEO personality inventories. The results of the first study suggest colour and similarity-attraction as two possible underlying factors for the correlations found between personality traits and skin preferences. The results of the second study partly confirm these findings, however not for similar personality traits and skin types correlations.