Modelling perceptual product experience – Towards a cohesive framework of presentation and representation in design (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sensory modalities and mental content in product experience
Contemporary research in human-technology interaction emphasises the need to focus on what people experience when they interact with technological artefacts. Understanding how people experience products requires detailed investigation of how physical design properties are mentally represented, and the theorisation of how people represent information obtained through different modalities still needs work. The objective of this study is to investigate how people experience modality-related affective aspects of products, using the psychological concept of mental content. For this purpose, we adopt the framework of user psychology, which is the sub-area of psychology involved with investigating cognitive processes implicated in human-technology interaction. In an experiment, N = 36 participants either looked at, touched, or both looked at and touched drinking glasses. The data was collected with thinking aloud protocols and analysed with inductive content analysis. Frequencies of key affects were observed to differ between the sensory modality groups. The differences are explained with the concepts of mental content. Different modalities involve differing content-based rules, which leads to variance in the feelings associated with the products. The theoretical framework and method utilised reveal the emotional values users associate with technologies, which can be used to inform experience driven design processes. The affective categories extracted in the study can be used in constructing evaluation frameworks, which in turn may serve as an effective tool for evaluation in the future. The method of experimentally separating modalities will also be useful when considering evaluation of products with emphasis on multiple modalities.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2015
Experience has become the new paradigm of product design. Designers seek to anticipate emotions or associations a user might have when in contact with their design. The factors that influence human product perception are diverse. We firstly show which product dimensions are currently investigated by design researchers. It becomes obvious that besides the usual suspects: form and colour, emotion and associations, there must be many others. We conducted a study to identify these and to estimate their pertinence in actual product conception. Word-based techniques like retrospective verbalization and mind mapping were employed. Semantic descriptors, analogies, and functionalities were highly represented. Sensations and emotions did only appear marginally among the abstract dimensions. The same low occurrence was seen for production procedures among the concrete dimensions. Other interesting dimensions found were interaction gestures, design motifs, and product components. An additional analysis of the participant mind maps on relations between the various dimensions showed many connections between e.g. material and texture or semantics and colour. Yet, these were rarely related to sensations and emotions. The insights widen the perspective on unexploited opportunities for design researchers to develop further conception strategies that allow the anticipation of user experience in product design.
Which senses dominate at different stages of product experience?
In the area of product design, sensory dominance can be defined as the relative importance of different sensory modalities for product experience. Since product experience is multisensory, it is interesting to know which sensory modality plays a leading role in a particular experience, so that designers could concentrate on the creation of the most relevant product properties. It is often assumed that vision dominates other senses. In the present study, we investigated the importance of different sensory modalities during various episodes of product usage. We asked 120 respondents to describe their experiences with consumer products in the following situations: while buying a product, after the first week, the first month, and the first year of usage. The data suggest that the dominant modality depends on the period of product usage. At the moment of buying, vision is the most important modality, but at later stages other modalities become more important. The dominance of a particul...
J. of Design Research, 2015
Experience has become the new paradigm of product design. Designers seek to anticipate emotions or associations a user might have when in contact with their design. The factors that influence human product perception are diverse. We firstly show which product dimensions are currently investigated by design researchers. It becomes obvious that besides the usual suspects: form and colour, emotion and associations, there must be many others. We conducted a study to identify these and to estimate their pertinence in actual product conception. Word-based techniques like retrospective verbalization and mind mapping were employed. Semantic descriptors, analogies, and functionalities were highly represented. Sensations and emotions did only appear marginally among the abstract dimensions. The same low occurrence was seen for production procedures among the concrete dimensions. Other interesting dimensions found were interaction gestures, design motifs, and product components. An additional analysis of the participant mind maps on relations between the various dimensions showed many connections between e.g. material and texture or semantics and colour. Yet, these were rarely related to sensations and emotions. The insights widen the perspective on unexploited opportunities for design researchers to develop further conception strategies that allow the anticipation of user experience in product design.
Towards A Sensory Approach for Designing Pleasurable User-Product Experiences
Increasing competitiveness in product design is resulting in good product functionality no longer being a sufficiently effective differentiator in the market place. User's attention is shifting to other product attributes such as the pleasurable emotions experienced during interaction. Designing for product-emotions is an emerging field in product design which is being attributed increasing importance. This paper investigates the research being conducted at the University of Malta via a research project entitled DemoHS that contributes to this field with the development of a sensation based model of product-emotions.
Designing Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective Products
Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2017
Designers and manufacturers often see consumption as the primary objective of a product-with implications such as discarded products, obsolete wastes, and ecological degradation. The paper aims to find the answer to the question, how emotional design can adapt the discarded and undesirable products into something valuable in a long term? This paper presents a framework combining Chapman's theory and Norman's theory on three levels of emotional design to highlight what long lasting connection with products entails. A design approach is presented combing the Wabi Sabi philosophy that promotes the celebration of decay and damage. This is used as one of the design principles for the experiments conducted on discarded products. Through constant user interaction before, during and after the experiments the evaluation of design as an agent of transformation is done. The user conducted the evaluation based on the Kansei elements of looks, sound, smell, and feel of the product. The experiments confirmed that a long-term value is only achieved through redesigning and reconstructing the perception of people towards products on a reflective level, rather than the visceral and behavioural elements of the product. The research found attachment to the visceral and behavioural elements of a product instead of an emotional one was causing users to discard products faster than required. The research indicated that many people, including designers and manufacturers, are unconsciously focusing on usability (behavioural level) and physical look (visceral level) of a product that are easily replaced, than on a meaningful way (reflective level) to create and maintain long-lasting emotions. The research concluded with a proposition towards digitization of products which could perhaps be an all round solution to make products more appropriate to human emotions. Digitization could give products the ability to capture, store and then communicate the stories, journey and memories back, in order to empower people to understand the value of longer-term use of products.
A Model of Human Sensations as a Basis for ‘Design for Product-Emotion’ Support
2006
User-product interaction is an emotional experience and products are nowadays being designed to address this emotional experience. Emotion-driven design is however a highly intricate activity, since emotions are idiosyncratic. For the more, the lack of design knowledge in the ‘design for emotion’ field makes such a design task even more complex. This paper presents new design knowledge being developed via an ongoing research project by the name of DemoHS which is aimed at investigating the role of senses as a basis for developing the required ‘design for product-emotion’ support. The DemoHS model of product-emotions, the theory leading to its development and the preliminary results collected during its initial testing are also analysed.
Objects are not self-sufficient, they do not exist on their own, but they form part of people’s everyday experience. Physical objects are always experienced in relation to a person, and this relational interaction can be complex, including several layers of perception (sight, sound, touch, etc.) as well as several layers of interaction (surface touch, kinetic interaction, etc.). These aspects of the interaction with an object in turn help to form the user’s understanding of the object, from the point of view of an experience of meaning, and from the point of view of emotional experience. In addition, products are always experienced over time – this can be on the micro-scale of a first interaction (you see the object, then you approach it, then you touch it, etc.) or on a macro-scale of the lifecycle of the object (from initial advertisement of a product to purchase, to use to disposal, etc.). These time-based interactions which have a cognitive or emotional effect in a user have the potential to be looked at in narrative terms, and this narrative perspective adds an additional layer to the conceptual model of physical interaction and cognitive and emotional experience: the layer of narrative interpretation. People interpret the world in broadly narrative terms, whether that is through recollection or memory of experiences, and narratives resonate with people; people tend to remember information presented in a narrative format they are used to (and what they are used to will be culturally specific) more than information presented in a non-narrative form (Bordwell, 1985). There is therefore an argument for increasing the narrativity of an experience as a way to increase the memory, recall, and word of mouth potential of that experience. The author proposes a conceptual model for looking at objects in terms of time-based narrative interaction experiences, with the aim of developing this model to be used by designers when developing new products, focussing on the narrativity of the product. This model puts in relation Bal’s idea of three ways of interpreting artefacts, in terms of artist’s intention, artefact’s agency, and narrativity as perceived by the user (Bal, 2002), with Desmet and Hekkert’s emotional design framework of product experience which outlines physical interaction, cognitive interpretation and emotional reaction as being distinct layers in product experience (Desmet and Hekkert, 2007). The model proposed by the author adds the user’s narrative interpretation as an additional layer in product experience. The paper will then describe how the resulting framework can be used to analyse existing objects as well as to design new objects. The long-term aim of the project is to develop methods for increasing the narrativity of products by analysing the way narrative mediums can be used as a model: as a source of narrative concepts as well as suggesting ways in which narrative can be structured or prompted by an object. Next steps focus on analysing film narratives that happen in the proximity of particular objects and deriving design methods from this analysis, with the aim of testing whether this method creates an increase in product narrativity. Some examples from the author’s own practice (in progress) will be used to illustrate the analysis and design methods; these will refer to the redesign of kettles. Further development of the project (outside the scope of this paper for time limitations) will look at other common domestic objects (sofas, tables and toasters) and then draw conclusions in the form of design methods.
Assessing the sensory experience of product design: Towards a method for ‘Five Senses Testing’
2006
This paper presents and discusses a method using a range of techniques for assessing sensorial perception of product design and interaction. Collectively denoted ‘Five Senses Testing’, the purpose of the method is to facilitate the assessment of sensory experience related to product design and product use. Furthermore, the outcomes of using the techniques inform product design development by connecting the sensory response to product features and characteristics. A range of explorative activities were undertaken to inform the development of the method and techniques used to elicit sensory feedback from product and use examination and assessment for design purposes. Through trials involving design students and design professionals, the method has been elaborated, tested and evaluated in focus group and industrial workshop sessions with a range of respondents to elicit individual sensory responses and experiences of products. Insights from method use with various products and use cont...