What You See Is What You Get: The Impact of Visual Perceived Finishedness (PF) on Collaboration Comments during Electronic Idea Generation

Micro-level visual phenomena significantly impact visually-supported interactions, and require further exploration. This study uses a laboratory experiment with managerial participants to examine the impact of typeface appearance on number of comments concerning collaboration process during use of an electronic ideation platform. The typefaces verifiably differed on perceived finishedness (PF) level. Low typeface PF was expected to lead to freer, more frequent interaction on the collaboration process. Contrary to expectations, this study found that participant familiarity with the high PF typeface led to a significant increase in the amount of collaboration process comments. This study examines the complementary new ideation metric of collaboration comment number in light of the benefits social metacognition can bring to the structuring of group creativity processes.