Grounding GUI Design in Computational Psychology

Abstract: Creating visually appealing user interfaces often requires extensive manual iteration. We propose an approach that applies answer set programming (ASP) to automatically generate and optimize UI layouts while satisfying design objectives such as grid alignment, grouping, color harmony, and whitespace, along with designer-specified preferences. Our method encodes constraints on element properties and relative positioning, producing layouts that balance functional and aesthetic goals. We evaluate this approach in three studies. Across two user studies, participants rated layouts generated with the full ASP model higher than both random designs and those based on simple heuristics. Designers reported that ASP-generated layouts supported early-stage sketching and exploration.