Novel, yet recognizable

Attractive websites balance novelty with familiarity for their type; novelty may matter more for service sites and typicality for commercial sites.

Project presentationInsufficient evidence

Sources

EmpiricalSilvennoinen et al. (2026)
A survey of 108 participants across six commercial and six service websites found that novelty and typicality both predicted appeal (the MAYA principle), with novelty the stronger predictor.
“both novelty and typicality predict website aesthetic appeal, supporting the MAYA principle”Abstrak

Experiments

005First impressions: novel yet recognizableIn progress

Findings

Insufficient evidence

As with the paired principle, the pilot shows that the demo can compare stimuli S1 and S4, but without human participants there are no comparable judgments of novelty, typicality, or appeal.