# Effects of Visual Complexity of Banner Ads on Website Users' Perceptions
## 1 Introduction  
With online advertising space being increasingly saturated, advertisers strive to find out what characteristics make ads more effective. One of the important factors is the design of the ads. Surprisingly, the effect of holistic visual design and aesthetics is not well researched. Researchers have mostly focused on understanding specific components of ads, such as ad shape [1], animation [2], visual images [3], text size [4], color [5], typeface figuration [6], etc., but not on the visual design of the ads in general. In ideal conditions, the impact of each individual component can be predicted, but this does not guarantee that the ad achieves the desired effect in a real environment. In fact, the success of a piece of advertisement depends on many dependent factors that need to be harmonically coordinated with one another [7]. The impact of design and visual aesthetics on the consumer is becoming an increasingly important factor for market competitiveness in advertisement [8]. To achieve an aesthetically appealing ad, designers can opt for a visually simple or complex design. While visual complexity (VC) is relatively clearly defined for websites [9; 10], the interpretations of what VC stands for in advertisement are not uniform [11]. There are different approaches to defining VC, some are based on subjective and some on objective methods of research. Objective methods are computational methods used for the quantification of VC. They are considered to be the most reliable and unbiased, but are inherently flawed since they are unable to take into account various human factors. Computers see images as binary representations of visual information, while humans subjectively look at andevaluate them [12]. People have different opinions, we react to stimuli and information in different ways and we can be influenced by several noncomputable factors, such as familiarity with the subject [13]. Consequently, in research that studies the impact of aesthetics or design creativity, objective methods are usually used only as a secondary indicator or for comparison with the main research method of defining VC. Due to our study focusing on the effects of design complexity and visual aesthetics, we selected a subjective method to define VC. The best-defined and structured method for the subjective determination of VC was provided by [PERSON] et al. [14]. Based on their analysis of 249 advertisements in consumer magazines that were tested with eye-tracking, they identified six general principles that determined design complexity: quantity of objects, irregularity of objects, dissimilarity of objects, detail of objects, asymmetry of object arrangement and irregularity of object arrangement. As [PERSON] et al. [14] stated, it is possible to obtain an overall index of design complexity by summing the six principles, since each principle independently raises complexity. It is important to note that VC is not to be confused with the comprehensibility of ads, as the visual design can be simple or complex regardless of the advertising message's comprehensibility. After we understand what VC is, we can examine its effect in advertising. There has been a long ongoing debate about whether it is better to use a visually simple or complex design. Opinions and research results are mixed [11]. It is impossible to look into all the existing research referring to the usage of various levels of design complexity, because this is a very active, dynamic and, due to constant improvements in technology, an always current topic. As a result, a lot of research is being conducted in the field of advertising, which is yielding new results and can sometimes undermine some beliefs or even completely refute the findings of past studies. Nevertheless, we listed some prevailing opinions.