An Arabic Version of the Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory (AR-VisAWI): Translation and Psychometric Properties

In the field of human-computer interaction, the concept of visual aesthetics gained popularity after researchers started to recognize its merits and effects on user experience. Yet, no proper instrument exists to assess the visual aesthetics of websites that are intended for users who speak Arabic as their native language. As such, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate an Arabic version of the Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory (VisAWI) and its short version (VisAWI-S). For this purpose, participants were asked to evaluate a randomly assigned website with the AR-VisAWI and with different validating instruments. A final sample of 223 participants was included in the analyses. Confirmatory factory analysis showed an acceptable fit of the AR-VisAWI and a good fit of the AR-VisAWI-S to the proposed structures. The reliability was also excellent (Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's Omega (omega) = .95) for the long version and good (Cronbach's alpha and omega total = .89) for the short version. Furthermore, the pattern of correlations to convergent and divergent measures supported the high construct validity of the translated scales. Overall, our results are the first empirical demonstration that the VisAWI captures facets of perceived aesthetics that can be reliably assessed in the Arabic-speaking world.