THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISUAL STYLE AND EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT IN MOBILE TOURISM APPLICATIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68302/std2026.vol3.176Keywords:
mobile tourism applications, user experience, visual style, emotional engagement, interface design, tourism user experienceAbstract
Mobile tourism applications are designed to deliver both functional usability and emotionally engaging experiences. This article examines how visual style is associated with emotional engagement in four mobile tourism applications used in Bulgaria: 100 Places Bulgaria, I Love Bulgaria, The Hundred National Tourist Sites of Bulgaria, and Opoznai.bg. A comparative mixed-methods user experience design approach was employed, incorporating a seven-point Likert scale and an Emo-card assessment with 85 respondents, along with three task-based think-aloud interviews. The analysis concentrates on four recurring interface components: overall map appearance, menu layout, landmark distribution, and achievement screen design. The results indicate that a clearer visual hierarchy, well-structured content distribution, and more visible progress cues are linked to stronger positive emotional engagement. Among the cases analysed, 100 Places Bulgaria exhibits the most positive emotional profile, whereas Opoznai.bg demonstrates functional strengths but weaker visual coherence. These findings support integrating affective measures into user experience evaluation for tourism-oriented mobile applications.
Supporting Agencies
The authors would like to thanks that paper was supported by the National Scientific Program "Security and Defense", which has received funding from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria under the grant agreement no. Д01-74/19.05.2022 The authors would like to thanks that paper was supported by Faculty of fine arts, St Cyril and St Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo. The author would like to thank the participants in the empirical study and for the academic support provided during the development of the research on which this article is based.Downloads
References
[1] D. A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, rev. and expanded ed. New York, NY, USA: Basic Books, 2013, https://dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files4/4bb8d08a9b309df7d86e62ec4056ceef.pdf [Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[2] E. L.-C. Law, V. Roto, A. P. Vermeeren, J. Kort, and M. Hassenzahl, “Towards a shared definition of user experience,” in Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Florence, Italy, 2008, pp. 2395–2398.
[3] D. Buhalis and A. Amaranggana, “Smart tourism destinations: Enhancing tourism experience through personalisation of services,” in Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015, I. Tussyadiah and A. Inversini, Eds. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2015, pp. 377–389.
[4] J. J. Garrett, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond, 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA, USA: New Riders, 2011.
[5] A. P. Vermeeren, E. L.-C. Law, V. Roto, M. Obrist, J. Hoonhout, and K. Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, “User experience evaluation methods: Current state and development needs,” in Proc. 6th Nordic Conf. Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI), Reykjavik, Iceland, 2010, pp. 521–530.
[6] P. M. A. Desmet, C. J. Overbeeke, and S. J. E. T. Tax, “Designing products with added emotional value: Development and application of an approach for research through design,” The Design Journal, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 32–47, 2001.
[7] H. L. O’Brien and E. G. Toms, “What is user engagement? A conceptual framework for defining user engagement with technology,” J. Amer. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol., vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 938–955, 2008.
[8] Y. Yordanov, “Piktogramata kato sredstvo za vizualna komunikatsiya” [“The pictogram as a means of visual communication”], in Proc. Int. Sci. Conf. Ot setivnoto kam vizualnoto – Pluralizmat v izkustvoto, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, 2015, pp. 201–204.
[9] Y. Yordanov, “Identichnost, traditsii i komunikatsiya na letnite olimpiyski igri” [“Identity, traditions and communication of the Summer Olympic Games”], in Ot setivnoto kam vizualnoto – V tarsene na identichnostta, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, 2019, pp. 180–187.
[10] S. Kosev and A. Markov, “Vazpriyatie i deystvie v edno. Vazdeystvie na interaktivni art proizvedeniya varhu nablyudatelya-uchastnik” [“Perception and action in one. Impact of interactive art works on the observer-participant”], Cultural and Historical Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, Digitalization, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 87–94, 2020, https://www.uni-vt.bg/userinfo/245/pub/17952/article_processes_a_markov.pdf [Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[11] S. Kosev and A. Markov, “Protsesi pri proektirane i izgrazhdane na interaktivni vizualni proizvedeniya” [“Processes for design and creation of interactive works in the visual arts”], in Proc. Int. Sci. Conf. “Ot setivnoto kam vizualnoto – pluralizmat v izkustvoto”, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, 2015, https://www.uni-vt.bg/userinfo/245/pub/17952/article_processes_a_markov.pdf[Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[12] D. A. Dillman, J. D. Smyth, and L. M. Christian, Internet, Phone, Mail, and Mixed-Mode Surveys: The Tailored Design Method, 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2014.
[13] J. Sauro and J. R. Lewis, Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2016.
[14] E. Goodman, M. Kuniavsky, and A. Moed, Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research, 2nd ed. Waltham, MA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2012.
[15] J. Nielsen, “Thinking aloud: The #1 usability tool,” Nielsen Norman Group, Fremont, CA, USA, 2012.
[16] Website: Ilovebulgaria.eu, Местен уеб сайт за пътувания https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.loyalty&hl=en, https://ilovebulgaria.eu/ [Accessed: March. 02, 2026]
[17] Website Стоте национални туристически обекта на България, Местен уеб сайт за пътувания, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.benesoft.turist&hl=bg [Accessed: March. 02, 2026]
[18] Website: Opoznai.bg, Местен уеб сайт за пътувания https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bg.opoznai&hl=bg, https://opoznai.bg/ [Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[19] Website 100te обекта, Местен уеб сайт за пътувания, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.futurist_labs.bg_places&hl=en [Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[20] K. Werbach and D. Hunter, For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Philadelphia, PA, USA: Wharton Digital Press, 2012.
[21] S. Sulova, "Artificial Intelligence Tools in Web Application Development – Advantages and Challenges," 2025 International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Next Generation Networks (ICNGN), Singapore, Singapore, 2025, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/ICNGN67480.2025.11413758 [Accessed: March. 02, 2026].
[22] J. Vasilev, “The Use of MyGPT for Creating Aggregated Reports in Specific Report Templates Using Data From Personalised Interviews”, Information and Communication Technologies in Business and Education: Proceedings of the International Conference Dedicated to the 55th Anniversary of the Department of Informatics, Varna, 2024, 42-46., ISBN (онлайн) 978-954-21-1184-9 [Online]. Available: https://informatics.ue-varna.bg/ICTBE2024/ICTBE2024_42-46.pdf [Accessed: April 01, 2026].
[23] Mincheva, S., & Stoyanova, V. (2025). Research on the impact of the user experience for the success of a virtual product: Bulgarian travel agency websites. Resources: Proceedings of the 16th International Scientific and Practical Conference, 237–241. https://doi.org/10.17770/etr2025vol2.8591
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Stela Mincheva, Veselka Stoyanova
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
