The rating consistency of aesthetic preferences for icon-background color combinations.

This study explored the degree of rating consistency for different icon-background color combinations, and identified the color combinations with the highest rating for consistency. Rating consistency is the degree of agreement among subjective aesthetic preferences for a specific color combination. In total, 3306 color combinations were rated in this study. The standard deviation of each color combination was calculated as the performance measure for assessing rating consistency among subjects for each color combination. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results demonstrated that the gender effect was insignificant and rating consistency was very low for both males and females. Furthermore, the experimental results showed that the color combinations affected rating consistency. Hence, cluster analysis with non-hierarchical procedures was then used to categorize color combinations via the clustering variable, the standard deviation of aesthetic preference ratings. Few color combinations in clusters had an extremely high rating consistency. The results indicated that the degree of rating consistency among subjects varied with color combinations. Therefore, using a single average of user aesthetic preference scores may not be appropriate for application to color combinations. Finally, the 30 color combinations determined experimentally can be used as default color combinations as the color scheme for an interface that can be changed because they have consistently high preference scores.