Aesthetics Router

Aesthetics & emotion — router

This plugin holds the principles that govern how an interface feels — beautiful, premium, friendly, trustworthy, alarming. They matter most on expressive surfaces (marketing, brand, onboarding) and least on instrumental surfaces (data tables, settings).

Principles in this plugin

Each principle has its own skill (with sub-aspect skills where useful). Principles marked [full] have reference-grade skill files; the rest are planned and will be added in subsequent passes.

Perceived quality

• aesthetic-usability-effect — beautiful designs are perceived as more usable.
• form-follows-function — form should derive from function; gratuitous decoration costs trust.
• wabi-sabi — beauty in imperfection, asymmetry, transience.
• veblen-effect — desirability that increases with price.
• most-average-facial-appearance-effect — average faces are perceived as attractive.

Personality and tone

• archetypes — recurring character patterns inform brand voice.
• anthropomorphic-form — humanlike features evoke warmth.
• baby-face-bias — round, big-eyed forms evoke trust and protectiveness.
• attractiveness-bias — attractive subjects credited with unrelated positive traits.
• phonetic-symbolism — sounds carry inherent connotations (sharp/soft, fast/slow).
• personas — fictional users that anchor design decisions to a coherent audience.

Persuasion and emotional pull

• exposure-effect — repeated exposure increases preference.
• scarcity — perceived scarcity increases desirability.
• supernormal-stimulus — exaggerated cues that out-compete natural ones.
• immersion — flow state, distraction-free, full-attention.

Evolutionary biases

• biophilia-effect — affinity for living things and natural patterns.
• savanna-preference — preference for open landscapes with scattered cover.
• prospect-refuge — preference for vantage points that allow seeing without being seen.
• hunter-nurturer-fixations — gendered attention patterns (controversial).
• face-ism-ratio — ratio of head to body shifts perceived authority vs. emotion.
• waist-to-hip-ratio — body-shape bias in portraiture.
• uncanny-valley — near-human faces that fail "human" cues evoke revulsion.

Heuristic for which to read first

• Designing a marketing landing page → aesthetic-usability-effect, archetypes, exposure-effect.
• Choosing a brand voice → archetypes, phonetic-symbolism, anthropomorphic-form.
• Designing a mascot or avatar → anthropomorphic-form, baby-face-bias, uncanny-valley, most-average-facial-appearance-effect.
• Premium tier marketing → veblen-effect, aesthetic-usability-effect.
• Onboarding tone → archetypes, storytelling (cognition), aesthetic-usability-effect.
• Empty / celebration states → wabi-sabi, anthropomorphic-form.

Cross-plugin pointers

• For visual hierarchy and grouping, see perception-and-hierarchy-principles.
• For learnability, see cognition-and-learnability-principles.
• For behavior, see interaction-and-control-principles.
• For accessibility, see process-and-robustness-principles.