Visual design system for generating a visual data structure associated with a semantic composition based on a hierarchy of components

A visual design system (VDS), the VDS comprising:

• a processor;
• a database to store at least one layout and an associated layout signature wherein said associated layout signature represents a hierarchical composition of the semantic types of the components of said at least one layout;
• a unit running on said processor to analyze components of an existing layout provided by a user of said VDS, to determine a component set signature for said existing layout, to compare said component set signature with at least one associated layout signature of at least one layout from said database to find a set of candidate layouts which are visually diverse and semantically similar to said existing layout;
• wherein said unit further presents said set of candidate layouts to said user, and updates said existing layout according to user selected layout;
• and
• an experiment system implemented on said processor to create, run and analyze the results of at least one experiment using at least one of:
• A/B and multivariate testing on user selected layouts to provide information on user preferred layouts for said VDS.