A novel collaborative filtering approach for recommending ranked items

In recent years, Collaborative Filtering (CF) has proven to be one of the most successful techniques used in recommendation systems. Since current CF systems estimate the ratings of not-yet-rated items based on other items’ ratings, these CF systems fail to recommend products when users’ preferences are not expressed in numbers. In many practical situations, however, users’ preferences are represented by ranked lists rather than numbers, such as lists of movies ranked according to users’ preferences. Therefore, this study proposes a novel collaborative filtering methodology for product recommendation when the preference of each user is expressed by multiple ranked lists of items. Accordingly, a four-staged methodology is developed to predict the rankings of not-yet-ranked items for the active user. Finally, a series of experiments is performed, and the results indicate that the proposed methodology produces high-quality recommendations.     

The effects of visual metaphor and cognitive style for mental modeling in a hypermedia-based environment

With the exponential growth of Internet technology, the notion of users’ cognition when navigating such a vast information space has gained prominence. Studies suggest that metaphors can serve as effective tools to scaffold users’ mental modeling processes. However, how users conceive of the metaphorical aid (as opposed to simply how they perceive it) remains questionable. Cognitive style, or the user’s preferred way of information processing, has thus been posited as a possible factor affecting the success of the metaphorical approach in a hypermedia environment.

This study explores the effects of visual metaphors and cognitive styles on users’ learning performances in terms of structural knowledge and feelings of disorientation. The results indicate that a visual metaphor could improve the quality of mental formation, yet simultaneously increase users’ mental load during navigation. In addition, cognitive style is a crucial factor that can significantly affect users’ learning performance.     

UX Curve: A method for evaluating long-term user experience

The goal of user experience design in industry is to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product. So far, user experience studies have mostly focused on short-term evaluations and consequently on aspects relating to the initial adoption of new product designs. Nevertheless, the relationship between the user and the product evolves over long periods of time and the relevance of prolonged use for market success has been recently highlighted. In this paper, we argue for the cost-effective elicitation of longitudinal user experience data. We propose a method called the “UX Curve” which aims at assisting users in retrospectively reporting how and why their experience with a product has changed over time. The usefulness of the UX Curve method was assessed in a qualitative study with 20 mobile phone users. In particular, we investigated how users’ specific memories of their experiences with their mobile phones guide their behavior and their willingness to recommend the product to others. The results suggest that the UX Curve method enables users and researchers to determine the quality of long-term user experience and the influences that improve user experience over time or cause it to deteriorate. The method provided rich qualitative data and we found that an improving trend of perceived attractiveness of mobile phones was related to user satisfaction and willingness to recommend their phone to friends. This highlights that sustaining perceived attractiveness can be a differentiating factor in the user acceptance of personal interactive products such as mobile phones. The study suggests that the proposed method can be used as a straightforward tool for understanding the reasons why user experience improves or worsens in long-term product use and how these reasons relate to customer loyalty.     

How do designers represent to themselves the users' needs?

This paper reports on an ergonomic study carried out during the design of a cutting machine-tool for the composite material in carbody parts casting. During this design process, the users’ needs were inferred by the designers on the basis of their own mental representations of the use of the new device. These representations of the users’ needs, correct or false, play a decisive role in the choice of a solution. The aim of the study is to identify their particularity. Analyzing the design meetings, we have highlighted that users are considered either as subsystems or basic design principles or elements of an imagined scenario. We have shown that these representations are linked to the types of meetings held during the design process. Accordingly, a diversification of the types of meetings should be promoted by the project leader, so that designers extend their points of view of the operators.     

Product design,semantics and emotional response

This paper explores theoretical issues in ergonomics related to semantics and the emotional content of design. The aim is to find answers to the following questions: how to design products triggering ‘happiness’ in one's mind; which product attributes help in the communication of positive emotions; and finally, how to evoke such emotions through a product. In other words, this is an investigation of the ‘meaning’ that could be designed into a product in order to ‘communicate’ with the user at an emotional level. A literature survey of recent design trends, based on selected examples of product designs and semantic applications to design, including the results of recent design awards, was carried out in order to determine the common attributes of their design language. A review of Good Design Award winning products that are said to convey and/or evoke emotions in the users has been done in order to define good design criteria. These criteria have been discussed in relation to user emotional responses and a selection of these has been given as examples.     

Effect of Celebrity Endorsements on Consumer Purchase Intentions: Advertising Effect and Advertising Appeal as Mediators

Advertising has become the most efficient way for companies to transmit product information to consumers. Words and images are often used to display the product and thus attract the attention of consumers. Of all types of endorsement, celebrity endorsement is the marketing method most frequently used by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs use celebrity endorsement to increase consumer purchasing motivation. Not only can celebrity endorsements attract consumers to purchase products, but the appeal of statements by celebrities can also affect consumer product image. Different appeal methods result in different advertising effects. This study used the case of advertising spokespersons for cell phones with general consumers as subjects. A total of 202 valid samples obtained through the questionnaire survey and used partial least squares regression analysis. The results showed that celebrity endorsements, advertising appeal, and advertising effect significantly and positively affect consumer purchase intentions. Moreover, advertising appeal and advertising effect exert a partial mediating effect on the relationship between celebrity endorsement and purchase intention. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Product type and consumers’ perception of online consumer reviews

Consumers hesitate to buy experience products online because it is hard to get enough information about experience products via the Internet. Online consumer reviews may change that, as they offer consumers indirect experiences about dominant attributes of experience products, transforming them into search products. When consumers are exposed to an online consumer review, it should be noted that there are different kinds of review sources. This study investigates the effects of review source and product type on consumers’ perception of a review. The result of the online experiment suggests that product type can moderate consumers’ perceived credibility of a review from different review sources, and the major findings are: (1) consumers are more influenced by a review for an experience product than for a search product when the review comes from consumer-developed review sites, and (2) a review from an online community is perceived to be the most credible for consumers seeking information about an experience product. The findings provide managerial implications for marketers as to how they can better manage online consumer reviews.     

Developing the index for product design communication and evaluation from emotional perspectives

Often customers make their purchase decision based on price, quality and functionality of the product. Sometimes the decision is influenced by the perceived value, which is always subjective and emotion-driven. In order to ensure successful launch of a product, it is extremely important to predict the perceived value of design alternatives systematically based on the common language understood by both target users and designers. However, the index for communicating and evaluating such value from emotional perspective is not available in the literature. Therefore, the objective of this research is to extract key indexes of perceived value from emotional perspectives and develop an effective algorithm to evaluate products. First, through literature review and the interview of participants, many scenarios of purchase decision were collected. A focus group was invited to identify the essential elements that influence the perceived value of products. Followed by a large scale questionnaire survey and factor analysis, four indexes were extracted. These indexes, named as FASE Index in brief, included features, association, social-esteem, and engagement. Second, by combining the fuzzy mathematics and the pairwise comparison method, an evaluation model was developed. Third, the perception differences of sample products were conducted to verify the validity of FASE index. The findings of this study demonstrated that FASE index was effective for decision making in product design.     

Application of Evolutionary Neural Networks on Optimization Design of Mobile Phone Based on User's Emotional Needs

Taking users’ emotional needs into consideration, this research aims to propose a new method to present product design features exactly and completely. On the basis of genetic algorithm integrated with back‐propagation (BP) neural networks, taking the mobile phone as research object, an optimization design algorithm was finally designed. First, the continuous and discrete design variables that describe mobile phones were screened with methods of dimensions, coordinate label, and morphological analysis. Forty three‐dimensional (3D) mobile phone models were designed by using 3D design software PROE. Accordingly, 12 representative mobile phones were selected through multidimensional scaling analysis and cluster analysis. Fourteen pairwise Kansei image words were obtained by collecting, screening, surveys, and statistical analysis method. Second, a BP neural networks model between design variables and user preference along with Kansei image words was established and verified with questionnaire survey data. Finally, the optimization design model for mobile phones was established considering design requirements and users’ emotional needs. A genetic algorithm integrated with BP neural networks was used to optimize mobile phone design. The results show that the optimization scheme is superior to others, and this paper will provide design suggestion for mobile phone designers.     

Kano’s model in Kansei Engineering to evaluate subjective real estate consumer preferences

Kansei Engineering is a product development tool used to identify users’ perceptions and find quantitative relationships between their subjective responses and design features. This paper proposes the use of Kano’s model in this process to analyse the impact of different subjective attributes on consumers’ purchase decisions. A practical example of real estate promotions design is presented. In the first stage, semantic differential is used to measure the subjective component of the emotional state. In the second stage, regression analysis and Kano’s model are used to define the relative weight of each emotional attribute in the purchase decision. Besides linear attributes, Kano’s model identified two other kinds of attributes that present a non-linear performance: basic attributes and exciting attributes. Therefore linear models could underestimate the effect of such kind of attributes.

Relevance to industry

This information is very relevant for architects and designers as it enables them to determine the extent to which they must direct their efforts at improving certain attributes with the object of improving the global evaluation.     

How oppositional loyalties resulting from producer–user collaborations reduce new product entry: Examples of online games

Instead of technological lock-in effects, oppositional loyalty to a product may emerge from users’ collaborations in the product, which grant consumers emotional experiences with the brand, encourage personal relationships, and provide emotional benefits. Therefore, consumers may limit their allocations of resources to competing new products because they devalue a new offering’s relative product performance and its user and complementary networks. Prior rate of use enhances this devaluating effect, and prior experience deepens the negative effects. In contrast, users with minimal prior experience and low usage rates more easily accept new products. This study tests these predictions in a path analysis with data pertaining to an online game, collected from consumers in cybercafés; the 296 respondents across 191 cybercafés support the hypotheses.     

Product design enhancement using apparent usability and affective quality

In this study, apparent usability and affective quality were integrated in a design framework called the Usability Perception and Emotion Enhancement Model (UPEEM). The UPEEM was validated using structural equation modeling (SEM). The methodology consists of four phases namely product selection, attribute identification, design alternative generation, and design alternative evaluation. The first stage involved the selection of a product that highly involves the consumer. In the attribute identification stage, design elements of the product were identified. The possible values of these elements were also determined for use in the experimentation process. Design of experiments was used to identify how the attributes will be varied in the design alternative stage and which of the attributes significantly contribute to affective quality, apparent usability, and desirability in the design evaluation stage. Results suggest that product attributes related to form are relevant in eliciting intense affect and perception of usability in mobile phones especially those directly related to functionality and aesthetics. This study considered only four product attributes among so many due to the constraints of the research design employed. Attributes related to aesthetic perception of a product enhance apparent usability such as those related to dimensional ratios.     

A product configuration analysis method for emotional design using a personal construct theory

Identifying emotion-related product attributes (perceived by consumers) is no easy task in the realm of emotional design. Conventionally, this process relies heavily on the researchers who conduct the Kansei experiments selecting product attributes such as color, form, and texture for Kansei studies. However, in so doing, other product attributes that also play a vital role in product-emotion associations might be neglected by the researchers. More importantly, the identification of product attributes should be based on consumer's point of view (and feelings). Accordingly, a personal construct theory based product configuration analysis method is proposed in this work. The method develops the customer's mind map for each Kansei tag in order to capture replications of candidate products. A means-value chain is used to generate targets which are later compared with candidate products by consumers. The comparison results could suggest product attributes that are relevant to the desired Kansei. The proposed approach is presented and illustrated using a case study of Graffiti designs on notebooks. Results obtained are discussed. It appears that the proposed method is promising in identifying product attributes with desired Kansei impacts.     

Moderating effects of time pressure on the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention in social E-commerce sales promotion: Considering the impact of product involvement

How does customer perceived value influence purchase intention in online flash sales on social e-commerce platforms? This study investigates the role of time pressure and product involvement in the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention. Drawing on survey data from wjx.com in China, we found that perceived value is positively related to purchase intention, whereas time pressure negatively moderates the effect of emotional/social value on purchase intention. The three-way interaction among time pressure, perceived functional/emotional/social value, and product involvement was also statistically significant. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results.     

Consumer perceptions on web advertisements and motivation factors to purchase in the online shopping

The principal objective of this study was to investigate the mediating and moderating effects of product involvement and trust toward websites in relation to the effects of the attributes of web advertisements on customers’ purchase intentions. We collected data consisting of a total of 264 responses from individuals with previous experience with purchasing products from online shopping mall sites, and utilized the PLS (partial least squares) method to analyze the collected data.     

“She is just stupid”—Analyzing user–agent interactions in emotional game situations

A multiplayer dice game was realized which is played by two users and one embodied conversational agent. During the game, the players have to lie to each other to win the game and the longer the game commences the more probable it is that someone is lying, which creates highly emotional situations. We ran a number of evaluation studies with the system. The specific setting allows us to compare user–user interactions directly with user–agent interactions in the same game. So far, the users’ gaze behavior and the users’ verbal behavior towards one another and towards the agent have been analyzed. Gaze and verbal behavior towards the agent partly resembles patterns found in the literature for human–human interactions, partly the behavior deviates from these observations and could be interpreted as rude or impolite like continuous staring, insulting, or talking about the agent. For most of these seemingly abusive behaviors, a more thorough analysis reveals that they are either acceptable or present some interesting insights for improving the interaction design between users and embodied conversational agents.     

Using event-related potentials to identify user emotion caused by product color attribute

The accurate quantification of the correlation between product color attributes and user emotions is the key to product color emotional design (PCED). However, the traditional method of emotion quantification is subjective, one-sided, and contingent, which reduces the reliability of the research results. To this end, this paper proposes a method for PCED based on the quantification of electroencephalogram (EEG) physiological indicators. A medical product, namely an infant incubator, is used as the experimental stimulus samples, and “unsafe-safe” is used as the perceptual imager word pair to conduct EEG measurement experiments of the user's emotional state. Two types of data are obtained in the experiment, namely behavioral data and EEG data. Via the analysis of the two types of data, the EEG physiological characteristic indicators (the event-related potentials (ERPs) components) are obtained, which can explain the user’s emotional cognitive mechanism. Finally, the relationship between the user’s emotional state and EEG characteristics under the influence of product color attributes is explored. The conclusions are as follows. (1) The “safety” emotional value of the two-color samples is higher than that of the three-color samples, which indicates that the simpler the color matching, the higher the safety emotion attribute of the samples. (2) Via the study of the three attributes of hue, lightness, and chroma in the assistant colors of the two-color samples, it is found that when the hue attributes of the samples are red, cyan, and blue, the safety emotional value is higher; moreover, the higher the lightness attribute and the chroma attribute, the higher the safety emotion. Research on the two color attribute dimensions of hue harmony and color tone harmony between the auxiliary color of the three-color samples and the embellishment color revealed that the more consistent the hue harmony, the higher the safety emotion, and the more significant the difference in the color tone harmony, the higher the safety emotion. (3) The reaction time data in the behavioral data demonstrate that the participants had the longest average reaction time under neutral emotions. (4) The results of the time–frequency analysis of the EEG data reveal that there are apparent mid-to-early ERPs components between 100 and 300 ms after the appearance of the stimulus samples. The ERPs component analysis results show that the P1 component can reflect the emotional valence to a certain extent; the higher the amplitude of the P1 component, the more pronounced the negative emotions of the participants, and the lower the safety emotional evaluation value of the two-color samples, the higher the amplitude of the P1 component. Moreover, the N2 and P3 components can reflect the degree of emotional arousal to a certain extent, and the increase in their amplitude indicates the more substantial emotion of the participant; furthermore, the correlation between N2 and emotional arousal is higher. The two-color and three-color experiments revealed that the more neutral the emotional state, the lower the amplitudes of N2 and P3. This research is expected to provide a theoretical foundation and experimental data basis for PCED methods based on EEG physiological indicators.     

Affective design of products using an audio-based protocol: Application to eyeglass frame

The measurement and understanding of user emotions elicited by product appearance are critical elements of the product development process. This paper proposes a new emotion measurement method, called Auditory Parameter Method. It is a non-verbal technique that uses auditory stimuli (music samples) and association tests for evaluating a set of products, given by their pictures. From user-tests, it provides an assessment of these products according to a series of emotional dimensions. We present the methodological framework used to build the links between user's emotional responses and geometrical features of the products. The method is described on an application case, an eyeglass frame. Analysis of Variance models are employed to examine how various shape factors influence users' emotional responses. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our protocol, we compare the proposed method with the conventional Semantic Differential using Principal Component Analysis and Generalized Procrustes Analysis. The new protocol demonstrates interesting qualities for collecting the intuitive emotions of users and for providing a discriminant measurement of emotions. It can also be used by designers to stimulate creativity.     

Predictors of user perceptions of web recommender systems: How the basis for generating experience and search product recommendations affects user responses

One critical question suggested by Web 2.0 is as follows: When is it better to leverage the knowledge of other users vs. rely on the product characteristic-based metrics for online product recommenders? Three recent and notable changes of recommender systems have been as follows: (1) a shift from characteristic-based recommendation algorithms to social-based recommendation algorithms; (2) an increase in the number of dimensions on which algorithms are based; and (3) availability of products that cannot be examined for quality before purchase. The combination of these elements is affecting users’ perceptions and attitudes regarding recommender systems and the products recommended by them, but the psychological effects of these trends remain unexplored. The current study empirically examines the effects of these elements, using a 2 (recommendation approach: content-based vs. collaborative-based, within)×2 (dimensions used to generate recommendations: 6 vs. 30, between)×2 (product type: experience products (fragrances) vs. search products (rugs), between) Web-based study (N=80). Participants were told that they would use two recommender systems distinguished by recommendation approach (in fact, the recommendations were identical). There were no substantive main effects, but all three variables exhibited two-way interactions, indicating that design strategies must be grounded in a multi-dimensional understanding of these variables. The implications of this research for the psychology and design of recommender systems are presented.     

Explorations of perceived qualities of on-body interactive products

Users' perceptions of new forms of products depend on various product qualities. As technology becomes increasingly mobile, carrying technology products on body is becoming more commonplace. As a result, these types of products hold different meanings and intentions for users than off-body products, which may lead to new interpretations. This paper investigates the relationship between the visual qualities of on-body interactive products and users' perceptions of those products. A brief literature review explores how technological developments have led to new modes of transporting products. This paper also examines the relative importance of changes in perceived qualities, technology acceptance and response to product appearance. Through user interviews, the authors explored the perceived qualities of conceptual designs for wearable phones, the meanings attached to these qualities and their relative importance. They present the results and follow with a discussion of the dimensions of product qualities and related characteristics that emerged.

Practitioner summary: This study, investigating the perceived qualities of on-body interactive products and applying the repertory grid technique, determines what will lead users to avoid or approach these new technologies. It also presents a preliminary framework to help designers understand the perceived qualities of these products.