When you first drop onto a new site or app, you typically have an immediate sense of whether you like the product or not. There’s a split second reaction that typically becomes ingrained in users: do I like how this looks or not?
To make sure your design produces the right gut reaction, use the Appeal metric.
Appeal is measured based on immediate user reaction to a design: when someone sees it for the first time, we first ask them to rate their satisfaction with the look of the page or product on a 5-point Likert scale. From there, it’s easy to calculate an Appeal score using a formula similar to CSAT, like the fairly average performance of this e-commerce homepage:
Source: Glare Framework - Appeal UX Metric
This also makes it easy to separate sentiment towards a design from it’s functionality and usability: by gauging satisfaction before interaction, we know that reactions are based purely on appeal of the design rather than the overall user experience.
For that reason, don’t expect this metric to be your North Star. It’s much more affective used along with other attitudinal and behavioral metrics like Loyalty and Engagement, especially after users get to interact with the design. In these research stacks, Appeal is a great metric to measure your brand’s immediate impact and set the stage for deeper understanding of user reactions.
