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.     

The marketing implications of affective product design

Emotions are compelling human experiences and product designers can take advantage of this by conceptualizing emotion-engendering products that sell well in the market. This study hypothesized that product attributes influence users’ emotions and that the relationship is moderated by the adherence of these product attributes to purchase criteria. It was further hypothesized that the emotional experience of the user influences purchase intention. A laboratory study was conducted to validate the hypotheses using mobile phones as test products. Sixty-two participants were asked to assess eight phones from a display of 10 phones and indicate their emotional experiences after assessment. Results suggest that some product attributes can cause intense emotional experience. The attributes relate to the phone's dimensions and the relationship between these dimensions. The study validated the notion of integrating affect in designing products that convey users’ personalities.     

Unity enhances product aesthetics and emotion

Although the aesthetic properties of a product are likely associated with users' emotional responses, empirical evidence does not explain how the aesthetic properties of a product evoke an emotional response. This study presents the hypothesis that users' emotions are evoked when they observe an aesthetically pleasing product with unity. The results implied that a product form with more unity had a greater likelihood of affecting users' positive emotions compared with those with less unity, and that the unity aesthetic may act as a mediator in evoking emotion. In addition, the results confirmed that products composed of curvier elements tended to evoke a stronger pleasure response compared with those defined by straight lines. A systematic approach, namely the decision tree method, acts as a unity design guideline for the enhancement of product aesthetics, which may evoke users’ pleasure responses further.Relevance to industryOur findings imply that a product form with more unity had a greater likelihood of affecting users’ positive emotions compared with those with less unity. In addition, a systematic approach, namely the decision tree method, acts as a unity design guideline for the enhancement of product aesthetics, which may apply for designing products with pleasures.     

用户界面的情感化设计

为研究情感因素对用户界面设计的影响,打破基于物质性产品设计的传统设计原则,总结出适用于界面设计的设计原则。对物质性产品和非物质性产品(用户界面),这两类产品的分析,确定情感因素在用户界面设计中的重要性;同时应用两个用户界面的案例来分析情感化设计在用户界面设计中给用户带来了什么。探究情感因素对用户界面设计中的影响,并指导用户界面进行情感化设计。通过对物质性产品和非物质性产品的比较分析,得出设计有了本质上的改变,用户界面设计应打破传统的设计原则,即"形式追随功能",将用户的情感作为设计的主导,形成遵循情感因素的形式美法则。在用户界面中,以形式激发功能。     

Conceptual design of a user-centric smart product-service system using self-organizing map

As an emerging IT-driven business paradigm, smart product-service system (Smart PSS), which offers not only the smart, connected product (SCP) but also its generated service as a solution bundle, has become a vital research topic. Many research efforts have been devoted to constructing the conceptual design framework by considering SCPs and services simultaneously. However, the following critical issues in Smart PSS conceptual design have not been well addressed: how to improve the solution of Smart PSS in the conceptual design stage to meet user emotional requirements. Aiming to fill the gap, this work proposes a conceptual design method for Smart PSS from the perspective of analyzing user-generated emotions/feelings. Specifically, the relevant traditional products are identified, and their public review data is used to analyze user emotions/feelings in user-product interaction. Interactive emotion board as a new design tool is presented to organize the user-generated emotions/feelings, associated design elements, and the potential design points of the initial solution. And the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized to evaluate the improved solution. To ensure the efficiency of the analysis process, the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm is utilized in the process of clustering product samples and Kansei words. A case study of smart electric bicycle service system (SEBSS) design is used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Based on the case study, the proposed approach appears effective in helping with Smart PSS conceptual design.     

Embracing diversity in user needs for affective design

To develop product portfolios and affective design we need to understand the diversity in user needs. The challenge is how to predict what users want and how they will behave. One approach is to understand user emotions and affective needs, and predict successful product design that can match the needs. This paper discusses affect and its link to cognition. To provide a context, several theories are presented. A framework is described that incorporates characteristics of users, tasks, products, and use environment. The goal is to highlight the importance of emotions in enhancing the value of products. This research field, which we call Hedonomics, is new. There are many challenges in developing valid and reliable measurements of affect, which can influence human factors research as well as design.     

A method for product form design of integrating interactive genetic algorithm with the interval hesitation time and user satisfaction

Due to the continuous release of new products, manufacturers are paying attention to customer-oriented design of products that meet user needs to minimize the risk of their products being rejected by the market. Due to the ambiguity of user cognition, it is difficult to accurately obtain the user's preference for individual productions. To respond to the challenge, we propose an engineering scientific research method of interactive genetic algorithm with the interval arithmetic based on hesitation and fuzzy kano model(FKM) to explore the emotional needs of users for product forms and drive product modeling evolution design. Through expert interviews, the morphological characteristics and perceptual images factors of the products attracting users are investigated. In order to identify the user's satisfaction relationship with the perceptual images, we use FKM to analyze the product image style that meets the user's kansei needs accurately and selects 5 factors which is attractive attributes. Meanwhile, we attempt to transform this 5 factors into evaluation carrier to guide the evolution direction of product styling in HIIF-IGA, and then optimized four electric bikes with scores over 8.8 so that it could realize user demand-driven product evolution design. To handle users' ambiguity, the FAHP method is used to quantify the user's emotional imagery criterion and create a product evolution design system platform, which can automatically generate product styling design scheme in line with user preferences. This experimental results show that the proposed method can help enterprises effectively improve customer satisfaction and reduce the cost and time of product development.     

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.     

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.     

基于感性工学的文具产品形态设计研究

随着社会发展,消费者对于产品的精神和情感需求越来越高。因此,如何有效的获取消费者的心理情感需求,并进行有效转化至产品设计之中,成为设计中的新课题。感性工学正是在这种情形下产生,其旨在探求消费者情感与产品特性的对应关系,服务于消费者。本文将以文具设计为例,简述感性工学在文具设计中的应用。     

Understanding the impact of perceived visual aesthetics on user evaluations: An emotional perspective

Studies aimed at predicting user judgments have been dominated by the usability and efficiency perspective. An important assumption of this perspective is that higher order judgments such as quality perception and download intention are mainly cognitive processes. Increasingly, research has shown that this perspective is incapable of fully explaining user judgments. Emerging research posits that emotions and emotional subcomponents that arise from aesthetic-based design factors are at least equally important for understanding how users form higher order judgments such as quality perception and attractiveness. In this article, light is shed on the role of emotions in affecting these judgments. This is performed for the particular case of mobile apps. Specifically, the relationship between various aesthetic subdimensions (classical and expressive) and emotional subcomponents (valence and arousal) is explored. First, an explanatory model from theories of aesthetics, emotions, and visual perception is derived. Second, a laboratory experiment is conducted, and it provides empirical evidence for the relationships between visual aesthetics, emotions, and higher order evaluations such as users' quality perceptions and the intentions to download. Specifically, significant relationships were found between aesthetic subdimensions and valence, whereas arousal was partially significant. Selective emotional subdimensions also significantly impacted quality perceptions, attractiveness, and intention to download. Finally, implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

User satisfaction modeling framework for automotive audio interfaces

Currently the research on product satisfaction is evolving to integrate pleasure and delight alongside other, more traditional needs. Pleasure and delight are emotional and hedonic benefits experienced by the user when interacting with the product. Thus, user satisfaction models have to deal with high complexity of product properties that collectively contribute to satisfaction. The formulation of these models has to include not only a proper taxonomy, but also the organization of such properties in categories and their relation to well defined satisfaction dimensions. Successful models would help to find out the most effective technical and design specifications (engineering parameters) that give shape to specific attributes of design, sometimes called “brand feelings”, defined in accordance with the business strategy. The objective of this paper is to present a user satisfaction modeling framework that deals with the complexity of an in-car user interface, namely the audio one. The proposed framework defines three distinct types of product properties: engineering parameters (P), perceived product attributes (A) and satisfaction dimensions (D) and presents a methodology to link the perceived product attributes (A) to satisfaction dimension (D).     

Dynamical mining of ever-changing user requirements: A product design and improvement perspective

Previous studies carried out customer surveys by questionnaires to collect data for analyzing consumer requirements. In recent years, a large and growing body of literature has investigated the extraction of customer requirements and preferences from online reviews. However, since customer requirements change dynamically over time, traditional studies failed to obtain the change data of customer requirements and opinions based on sentiments expressed in reviews. In this paper, a new method for dynamically mining user requirements is proposed, which is used to analyze the changing behavior of product attributes and improve product design. Dynamic mining differs from the traditional need acquisition mainly in three aspects: (1) it involves dynamically mining user requirements over time (2) it adds changes in manufacturers’ opinions to the analysis (3) it allows for product improvement strategies based on the changing behavior of product attributes. First, text mining is adopted to collect customer and manufacturer review data for different time periods and extract product attributes. A Natural Language Processing tool is used to measure the importance weight and sentiment score of product attributes. Second, an approach for dynamically mining user requirements is introduced to classify product attributes and analyze the changes of attribute data in three categories over time. Finally, an improvement strategy for next-generation product design is developed based on the changing behavior of attributes. Moreover, a case study on vehicles based on online reviews was conducted to illustrate the proposed methodology. Our research suggests that the proposed approach can accurately mine customer requirements and lead to successful product improvement strategies for next-generation products.     

Multi‐Criteria Usability Evaluation of Electronic Devices in a Fuzzy Environment

The user‐oriented design is the most important competition issue in today's market. In recent years, user‐oriented design (i.e., usability) has become expected, particularly in electronic devices. Usability considers high user satisfaction in conjunction with user performance. Usability of electronic products is essential for high customer satisfaction as well as product life cycles in companies. Therefore, MP3 players were selected among the electronic products. Designing usable MP3 players is extremely important for users who have close interaction with them. In this study, MP3 players of different types and sizes were selected and their usability evaluated. The usability criteria used in the MP3 players' evaluation were divided into two major categories: performance and emotional expectations. The alternatives were ranked with fuzzy multi‐criteria decision‐making methods, namely, Fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS), Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), and Fuzzy Axiomatic Design Theory (FADT), and the results were compared. Although the same decision matrices and data obtained from semantic differential experiment were used for all fuzzy multi‐criteria decision‐making methods, it is shown that different rankings were obtained. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Scenario building as an ergonomics method in consumer product design

The role of human factors in design appears to have broadened from data analysis and interpretation into application of discovery and "user experience" design. The human factors practitioner is continually in search of ways to enhance and to better communicate their contributions, as well as to raise the prominence of the user at all stages of the design process. In work with design teams on the development of many consumer products, scenario building has proved to be a valuable addition to the repertoire of more traditional human factors methods. It is a powerful exploration, prototyping and communication tool, and is particularly useful early on in the product design process. This paper describes some advantages and potential pitfalls in using scenarios, and provides examples of how and where they can be usefully applied.     

Emotional design in multimedia learning: Differentiation on relevant design features and their effects on emotions and learning

Previous research into multimedia learning has mainly focused on cognitive factors to investigate different instructional conditions and design principles. Emotional factors have so far been widely neglected. However, recent studies showed that the emotional design of multimedia learning material can evoke positive emotions in learners that in turn facilitate the learning process. Following this lead, our study aims to further explore the potential of an emotional design. We seek to differentiate the current findings by systematically deducing emotionally relevant design features and also taking into account negative emotional states. In order to deduce relevant design features, we adopt concepts from web design. German college students (N = 334) were assigned to one of nine conditions, created by two design factors (classical vs. expressive aesthetics), each with two levels (high vs. low) and a usability factor (high vs. low usability) as well as a control group (no color/gray scale). Unexpectedly, objective differences in aesthetics or usability did not affect learners’ emotional states. However, the perceived aesthetics and usability positively affected the emotional states of the learners. Learners’ emotional states had a minor impact on learning outcomes but a larger impact on learners’ intrinsic motivation, including the motivation to continue working with the material.     

提升产品创新设计中用户体验方法的研究

通过对用户体验的概念及用户层的需求进行归纳总结,了解不同层次用户在产品上的需求及期望,提出四种在产品创新设计中提升用户体验的方式。以实际案例进行理解及阐述,将体验设计与产品创新设计相融合,使产品易用的同时,带给用户一种全新的使用方式及体验,以达到直接让用户参与,突出人与产品间的情感体验。     

Providing Software as a Service: a design decision(s) model

We examine how Software as a Service (SaaS) providers make different design decisions using a theoretical model. We consider two non-functional attributes: modularity of the software architecture and the architectural performance of the software. We model the relationship of these two attributes with factors such as user preferences, user demand, and the price of the service. In a significant departure from traditional models of IS product development, we considered marginal cost and maintenance cost of providing SaaS service to recognize that the SaaS service has characteristics of both a product and a service. We show how to find the optimal values of design attributes that maximize SaaS provider’s profits, taking into account relevant factors such as user preferences, user demand and service price. Our research provides one of the first analytical models of optimal design decision making by SaaS providers. We use the model to further show how the SaaS providers should adjust the service design in response to changes in user preferences, associated costs and other relevant factors.     

基于我国端游产品的用户体验设计策略研究

在体验经济的时代环境下,探析客户端游戏产品设计中所运用的用户体验设计策 略,为今后的传统产品设计寻求新的设计视角。采用文献研究和案例分析法,以用户体验设计 发展为基础,以产品设计、用户体验设计、交互设计、设计心理学及感性工学中的方法理论为 依托,借助客户端游戏产品为研究对象,对其蕴含的用户体验设计策略进行研究。给出一种用 户体验的量化评价模型,并提出了能够提升客户端游戏产品用户体验的设计策略,在此基础上 为传统产品的创新设计提供新的启示和指导。     

How the Kano model contributes to Kansei engineering in services

Recent studies show that products and services hold great appeal if they are attractively designed to elicit emotional feelings from customers. Kansei engineering (KE) has good potential to provide a competitive advantage to those able to read and translate customer affect and emotion in actual product and services. This study introduces an integrative framework of the Kano model and KE, applied to services. The Kano model was used and inserted into KE to exhibit the relationship between service attribute performance and customer emotional response. Essentially, the Kano model categorises service attribute quality into three major groups (must-be [M], one-dimensional [O] and attractive [A]). The findings of a case study that involved 100 tourists who stayed in luxury 4- and 5-star hotels are presented. As a practical matter, this research provides insight on which service attributes deserve more attention with regard to their significant impact on customer emotional needs. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Apart from cognitive evaluation, emotions and hedonism play a big role in service encounters. Through a focus on delighting qualities of service attributes, this research enables service providers and managers to establish the extent to which they prioritise their improvement efforts and to always satisfy their customer emotions beyond expectation.