ArticleLiterature Review

Engineering aesthetics and aesthetic ergonomics: Theoretical foundations and a dual-process research methodology

Taylor & Francis
Ergonomics
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Abstract

Although industrial and product designers are keenly aware of the importance of design aesthetics, they make aesthetic design decisions largely on the basis of their intuitive judgments and "educated guesses". Whilst ergonomics and human factors researchers have made great contributions to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machine-environment systems, aesthetics is largely ignored as a topic of systematic scientific research in human factors and ergonomics. This article discusses the need for incorporating the aesthetics dimension in ergonomics and proposes the establishment of a new scientific and engineering discipline that we can call "engineering aesthetics". This discipline addresses two major questions: How do we use engineering and scientific methods to study aesthetics concepts in general and design aesthetics in particular? How do we incorporate engineering and scientific methods in the aesthetic design and evaluation process? This article identifies two special features that distinguish aesthetic appraisal of products and system designs from aesthetic appreciation of art, and lays out a theoretical foundation as well as a dual-process research methodology for "engineering aesthetics". Sample applications of this methodology are also described.

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... Research showed that a misalignment between the utilitarian and hedonic aspects of the product is more likely to cause strong negative emotions [63,64]. The utility aspects relate to functionality and reliability, while the hedonic element refers to the product's ergonomics, Kansei, and aesthetics [65,66]. That means a product with high functional quality but low enjoyability can cause negative emotions relative to a product with equivalent hedonic and utilitarian attributes [63,67]. ...
... [74] examined creativity in product design and its relationship with functionality and aesthetics. Their case study suggested no tangible relations between creativity, utility, and aesthetics [66]. Haug [75] studied the complexity of aesthetics in product success and offered a framework for understanding the aesthetic experience of products. ...
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This paper reviews the research ideas around consumer response to product design. From the product side, we discuss the most significant design features preferred by average consumers, such as aesthetics and utility. And from the consumer side, we investigate the human factors influencing consumer perceptions. We present the main approaches used to measure the consumer response to product design and summarize the multiple biases that occur during the evaluation. Finally, we present in detail the most commonly used methods to analyze consumer response data and their roles in the design evaluation context.
... In behavioral research, the concept of aesthetics was first proposed by Fechner (Liu, 2003). Its purpose is to find the relationship between different design dimensions and perceived attraction by the design of rectangles and ellipses with visual impact, to determine the factors affecting the attraction of objects, such as shape, tone, color and texture (Liu, 2003). ...
... In behavioral research, the concept of aesthetics was first proposed by Fechner (Liu, 2003). Its purpose is to find the relationship between different design dimensions and perceived attraction by the design of rectangles and ellipses with visual impact, to determine the factors affecting the attraction of objects, such as shape, tone, color and texture (Liu, 2003). With the deepening of research on aesthetics, scholars have begun to pay attention to design aesthetics. ...
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As a symbol of Chinese culture, the Palace Museum undertakes the mission of spreading Chinese culture. In recent years, through the innovative integration of traditional culture, the Palace Museum has provided a series of cultural and creative products to meet consumers’ personalized expectations, which has attracted wide attention from both academia and practice. Cultural and creative products, as one of the means of cultural dissemination by museums, affect the revenue and sustainable development of museums. Thus, it is of great significance to study how consumers arrive at the decision to purchase these products. This article explores the influence mechanism of design aesthetics on consumers’ purchase intention (N = 201). The results show that design aesthetics has a positive influence on consumers’ purchase intention through perceived value and that Chinese traditionality moderates the indirect influence of perceived value. The contributions and implications are discussed.
... Os trabalhos de Jordan (2000), Desmet (2002;2003) e Norman (2008) são mais representativos da área do Design para a emoção. No entanto, as três abordagens estão voltadas para a dimensão do produto, ignorando a dimensão estratégica do Design, por exemplo. ...
... Dentre os diversos fatores que podem explicar essa hegemonia da visualidade no âmbito do Design, um deles merece destaque, é o fato de que grande parte das publicações, utilizadas para o ensino da Estética e presentes na maioria das bibliografias que estruturam os Cursos Superiores de Design, centra-se no sentido da visão. Por exemplo, podem ser citadas as obras de Arnheim (1978), Gomes Filho (20002003); Löbach (2000) e Bürdek (2006). ...
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This book proposes Aesthetic Education as a possibility to take a new look at the world of life. Its objective is to contribute to the aesthetic education of man, preparing him to think for himself, integrating sensitive knowledge and rational knowledge. Inspired by Schiller, this is one of the ways that has proved fruitful in addressing contemporary problems.
... According to Fast (Faste, 1995), aesthetics is a branch of psychology. Liu (Liu, 2003) states that the term aesthetics is our perception or opinion of an object based on what we see, feel, hear, smell and even taste. Additionally, our opinion could be based on one or all of these senses. ...
... They examined the joint influence of product aesthetics and typicality on preference responses by using thechair as an example. Liu, Y. (2003) In this study, Liu tries to find out the two distinct thinks that differentiate aesthetic review of products and system design from theaestheticgratitude of art and lays out animaginary foundation as well as a two-process research procedure for aesthetics. Landwehr, J. R., Wentzel, D., & Herrmann, A. (2010) How luxury values the brands of aluxury car company and they effect marketing strategy of any company. ...
... The customer purchase decision is significantly influenced by stylish aspect of product (Mokarian, 2007). Human reactions are affected not just by the frame or the obvious physical properties, yet additionally by the content and the emblematic meaning (Liu, 2003. This recommends style credits are firmly identified with the shape and features of an item. ...
... Designers must see how the visual part of an item influences the client's impression of item design innovation. Liu (2003) contended that the style of an item impact its piece of the overall industry, implying that stylish qualities of an item are basically identified with client needs. Apple as an exceptional trend-setter in product design produced high quality products based on a design-driven model. ...
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Innovation is one of the key drivers of achievement that a firm should use to achieve competitive advantage. The capacity to improve is particularly essential for a company's survival in unique and competitive environment. The highly competitive and information intensive environment stimulates the customer demand for change. Therefore, the innovative design which incorporates the customer requirements is always highly valued. Despite the fact that the significance of design has expanded, no exploration has been done to clarify the connection between innovation, product design and customer value. Past research has been constrained and has not given a reasonable idea of design innovation or characterized the connection between design innovation and customer value. This paper tries to characterize the connection between design innovation and customer value. Three dimensions of design innovation (style, features and feeling) have studied to establish relationship with customer value. Results have verified that there is a strong and significant impact of overall innovative sensory design on the customer value in general and innovative style and features in particular. This exploration contributes considerably to our comprehension of the connection between design innovation and customer value.
... Design aesthetics refers to the beauty of a product's appearance (Hsiao & Chen, 2018) and it involves a visual representation of a wearable device. As noted by (Liu, 2003), aesthetics is related to ergonomic and usability features. Thus, (Liu, 2003) proposed the concept of ergo-aesthetics to refer to the integrated design approach that is aimed at meeting both ergonomic and aesthetics design objectives. ...
... As noted by (Liu, 2003), aesthetics is related to ergonomic and usability features. Thus, (Liu, 2003) proposed the concept of ergo-aesthetics to refer to the integrated design approach that is aimed at meeting both ergonomic and aesthetics design objectives. Some wearable devices, such as smartwatches, are viewed as aesthetic items that express users' values and norms, being a mixture of technology and fashion Rauschnabel et al., 2016). ...
Article
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This paper proposes the DANP (DEMATEL-based Analytic Network Process) method so that the factors that affect the quality of IoT (Internet of Things)-based smart wearable devices can be adequately assessed. The proposed method helps to identify and visualize the importance of certain factors (dimensions and criteria), the causal relationship among the factors, the mutual influence upon each other, and their influential weights. A numerical example was presented to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. The results of this study demonstrated that the quality dimensions can be divided into a causal group (the technical and ergonomic dimensions) and an effect group (the functional and symbolic dimensions). The functional dimension proved to be the most important factor and the most important core problem to be solved. The most influential driving factor was the ergonomic dimension. The results of this study provide insights into critical design criteria to better meet the users’ needs and can be used by manufacturers to develop strategies for improving the quality of IoT-based smart wearable devices, in a priority order.
... . The two physical quantities of complexity, and order(entropy) can be linked to traditional beauty concepts in art history. Liu et al. [13] introduced the concept of "Engineering Aesthetics," which integrates the aesthetic dimension into ergonomics. The objective is to employ engineering and scientific approaches to investigate aesthetics and incorporate these methods into the aesthetic design and evaluation process. ...
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... Kullanılabilirlik ve estetik gibi diğer özellikler ve ölçüler genellikle kazananları ve kaybedenleri birbirinden ayırır. Ürün estetiği ürün başarısında kritik bir rol oynar (Liu, 2003(Liu, : 1273. Buna ek olarak, ürünün estetik cazibesi, müşterilerin yenilikçi olma algısını "ürünlere" karşı olumlu psikolojik ve davranışsal tepkilere yol açabilir (Balaji ve Roy, 2017: 13). ...
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... By varying different aspects of product appearance, including form, material, and colour, designers try to communicate messages and obtain consumers' responses [6]. Since market success is largely dependent on the product form [2], a successful design satisfies functional requirements and is aesthetically pleasing to the user [39,55,56]. Research indicates that culture and current fashion may influence users' responses to product designs [46]. ...
Article
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This study investigates how Australian consumers’ aesthetic preferences for timber joints in architectural products are influenced by their sociodemographic characteristics and the visual appearance of the joints. Visual appearance in architecture and product design is a vital factor in consumer response and success of a product; however, designed items are often created without aesthetic research rigour to better understand user acceptance. We see this as an opportunity for greater penetration of aesthetics for designed products and, in this instance, contemporary architecture. We provide extensive literature defining aesthetics and outline the theoretical framework for experimental computer-generated visual stimuli. An online survey was conducted with 114 participants, who rated five timber joints on seven visual appearance attributes. The findings reveal that Joint 1 (angular) and Joint 5 (curved) were the most preferred joints. Employment status was the only sociodemographic factor that significantly affected the aesthetic preference. The findings of the study were used to inform design decisions for building a pagoda in a cemetery in Melbourne. The study contributes to the literature on aesthetics and design by providing empirical evidence on consumer preferences for architectural products. The study also suggests an opportunity to bridge aesthetics with sustainability, as timber is a sustainable material that can be designed to resonate with consumers’ aesthetic sensibilities while adhering to environmental principles.
... Visual aesthetics is an important aspect of interaction design and product design (Liu, 2003). Recently, many scholars have devoted themselves to studying the influence of interface beauty on the overall user experience in the process of interaction between human and computer system. ...
Conference Paper
Multi-segment text overlay images are commonly used in web design, poster layout and other design-related activities. In this paper, we use a character-based blank score calculation model and a text box-based blank score calculation model to investigate which model is more effective in reflecting visual aesthetics in the case of multi-part text overlay images. The text-frame-based blank-score model was found to be more effective in reflecting the visual perception of the subjects by using the fitting tool in MATLAB to fit the subjective scores and the calculated blank scores. The text box in the text box-based blank score model was then optimized by eliminating the part of the last line of each paragraph that was not filled with text, so that the text box was not a regular rectangle, but still a relatively regular linear text box. In the case of multi-paragraph text overlay image, when the line spacing and paragraph spacing are the same, subjects cannot distinguish the beginning and end of several paragraphs of text by line spacing. In this paper, an optimized text box-based margin score calculation model is used to design an experiment to investigate the effect of the margin score of the text box of the last line of the preceding paragraph on the visual effect of subjects' visual division of paragraphs in the case of multiple-paragraph text-covered images. The results show that when the blank area of the last line of the previous paragraph is about half of the area of the previous line, the visual aesthetic satisfaction is the highest, i.e., people can quickly and accurately divide the paragraph without reading the text content, while when the last line of the previous paragraph is filled with text, the visual aesthetic satisfaction is the lowest, and people cannot intuitively divide the paragraph without reading the text content.
... This is one of the factor because of it product is able to sustain in the market for longer time. Our perception or opinion of an object based on what we see, hear, feel, hear and even taste is called as aesthetics [13]. ...
Article
“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” Sophia Loren Design aesthetics is an important element in any of the product which a man uses in day to day life. This is also one of the major factors which compel a consumer to buy the product. In this growing competition focus is on innovative product development and new approaches to draw customer’s attention towards their products. Aesthetics is one of the integral parts of design principles that define a design’s pleasing qualities. Aesthetics are one of the most important for customer acceptance in almost all the fast moving goods categories. This study aims to investigate the impact of aesthetics in innovative product development and consumers’ perception and acceptability as importance of aesthetics is not being explored by researchers. This paper inspects the importance of aesthetics while working on innovative product development, design process, sustainability, and consumer perception on aesthetics while buying a new product.
... On the other hand, the limits of the size of sieve outlet diameter were based on design consideration of aesthetics and ergonomics. In machine design, the size should be considered so as to have a simple, compact design which is appealing to users [27]. Table 1 shows the two levels for the four factors. ...
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... However, the subjective qualities of a texture can be difficult to define objectively. Quite often, they result from design decisions that are the outcome of the designer's intuition (Liu, 2003) or dated documentation (Ranger et al., 2019), rather than empirically based observations. Still, there are growing efforts to understand how physical properties of the textures relate to the affective response they produce (Chang and Chen, 2016). ...
Article
Surface textures play an important role in the perception of consumer products. In car interiors, they are a major contributor to the perceived quality of a vehicle. However, limited attention has been paid to the affective responses elicited by touch and observation of a textured surface. Here we report an investigation in which Kansei Engineering was used to explore the perception of texturized plastic surfaces, both in its psychophysical and affective dimensions, as well as the influence of the textures’ physical parameters. In a controlled study, 21 subjects were asked to touch 18 samples of two types of plastics, commonly used in car interiors, Polypropylene (PP) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), under tactile (only touch) and visual-tactile (touch and vision) conditions. Participants were asked to rate the samples according to 8 descriptors of psychophysical and affective nature. Results show a relation between perceived roughness and the positive/negative valence of the affective response. Importantly, this relation is moderated by the visual appearance of the textures, when these are visible. Both psychophysical and affective dimensions were modelled through height parameters of the texture elements and a variable describing the type of material. The present findings are relevant for the understanding of visual-tactile perception of textures and have implications in the design of textured components for automotive car interiors.
... Desta forma, o objetivo é propor um protocolo de avaliação estética, capaz de auxiliar a manutenção da consistência estética em serviços prestados aos cidadãos.2. AVALIAÇÃO ESTÉTICA E ESTÉTICA NO ÂMBITO DOS SERVIÇOSA experiência estética natureza multidimensional e no âmbito dos serviços isto não é diferente(LIU, 2003; CANDI, 2008). Enquanto no Design de produtos tal avaliação pode ater-se a relação usuário x artefato, no âmbito do DS, a percepção estética ocorre com múltiplos artefatos, múltiplos pontos de contato, de forma simultânea ou não.A percepção estética ao longo da jornada da experiência do usuário não pode ser tratada como a soma das experiências estéticas. ...
... Desta forma, o objetivo é propor um protocolo de avaliação estética, capaz de auxiliar a manutenção da consistência estética em serviços prestados aos cidadãos.2. AVALIAÇÃO ESTÉTICA E ESTÉTICA NO ÂMBITO DOS SERVIÇOSA experiência estética natureza multidimensional e no âmbito dos serviços isto não é diferente(LIU, 2003; CANDI, 2008). Enquanto no Design de produtos tal avaliação pode ater-se a relação usuário x artefato, no âmbito do DS, a percepção estética ocorre com múltiplos artefatos, múltiplos pontos de contato, de forma simultânea ou não.A percepção estética ao longo da jornada da experiência do usuário não pode ser tratada como a soma das experiências estéticas. ...
... While Jordan's (1998b) concept of pleasure in product use has become a well-known and accepted component of emotional product design, aesthetics is also often addressed in the literature with regard to its interaction with usability (e.g. Lee and Koubek 2010;Quinn and Tran 2010;Trathen 2014). Liu (2003) also pointed out the necessity of including aesthetics at an early stage of the engineering process and requested a stronger integration of aesthetics in ergonomics. ...
Article
Usability and emotionality are important components of user experience. However, an equal consideration of both constructs in product design is not always possible due to sometimes competitive objectives. In order to foster a user-oriented design decision in such conflicting situations, this paper examines the general importance of both constructs and their dimensions from the user’s perspective while taking into account socio-demographic variables. Examination was realised by conducting a product independent anonymous online survey (n = 130). The findings confirm that both constructs are important, yet in a direct comparison, usability is perceived as more important than emotionality. Taking selected dimensions of both constructs into account, an intuitive, easy and learnable usage, suitability for the user's task and freedom from impairment are particularly important in terms of usability. An aesthetic and pleasurable product design as well as originality is essential in terms of emotionality. Practitioner summary: This paper aims for supporting user-oriented design decisions in the context of conflicting objectives occurring in the consideration of usability and emotionality in product design. The conducted survey (n = 130) revealed usability as perceived more important than emotionality. Usability may thus be prioritised within conflicting design decisions. Abbreviations: DFG: German Research Foundation; e.g.: for example; GESIS: Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences; m: metric; M: Mean; n: number of participants; n: nominal; o: ordinal; p level: level of statistical significance; RQ: Research question; r: correlation coefficient; V: Cramer’s V; χ²: Chi-square
... Although the term still lacks a consistent definition [68], the literature provides evidence that single aesthetic features, such as color [e.g., 52,65], familiarity [e.g., 32,57], expressivity [e.g., 30], and visual complexity [e. g., 65,69], have an impact on the perceived attractiveness of an object [22,34] and increase visual appeal, which is "an immediate pleasurable subjective experience that is directed toward an object and not mediated by intervening reasoning" [p. 690,45]. ...
Article
Interest in science topics is an important prerequisite for science learning and achievement. Here, as part of a field experiment, we studied whether teenagers’ interest and learning of physics topics would be influenced by the aesthetics of a multimedia learning app. More specifically, we investigated with the example of learning about energy (types of power plants) how different interface designs of a multimedia learning app would influence aesthetic experience, interest, and learning outcome. In our study Swiss high school students (N = 108) were assigned to one of two conditions (i.e., game-style vs. industrial-style) differing in various aesthetic features. Results indicate that high-quality interfaces support learning and expressive aesthetic design features additionally foster interest in order to engage with the topic. Moreover, our findings on aesthetic experience suggest that deep perceptual processes, such as emotion and cognitive stimulation induced by interfaces, further impact interest and learning. Thus, our study gives implications for the design of interest-generating and learning-supporting science apps for teenagers and emphasizes the significance to consider aesthetic experience in future research.
... For example, the aesthetic design of mobile apps triggered certain emotional responses (Bhandari et al., 2019). This emotional experience and aesthetic evaluation of products is based an individual's visual, auditory, and haptic perception (Liu, 2003). Aesthetic product design may trigger emotional arousal like disappointment or excitement (Creusen and Schoormans, 2005). ...
Article
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This paper investigates the impact of aesthetics in early game development based on a quantitative analysis of 367 early access games. We identified the relationship between aesthetic perception in early video games reflected in the user reviews, comments, and subsequent positive and negative video game recommendations over time. We find that customer co-creation in product innovation is increasingly negative feedback over time when the game’s aesthetic early impression is perceived as negative. The implications for innovation management are that aesthetics design impacts the response to customer-ready prototypes. Managers should take the aesthetic design and user perception in early development into account and not delay the attention to aesthetics to a later product release stage.
... And there is a lack of systematic methods to help them make design decisions and conduct evaluations. There is also an obvious lack of a theoretical foundation or framework to organize, communicate, and explain related ideas and concepts [6]. ...
... A experiência estética em serviços tem natureza multidimensional (LIU, 2003;CANDI, 2008). Enquanto no design de produtos tal avaliação pode se ater à relação usuário x artefato, no âmbito dos serviços, segundo a ótica do Design para serviços, a avaliação estética abrange múltiplos artefatos, múltiplos pontos de contato, de forma simultânea ou não. ...
Article
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This paper deals with the aesthetic dimension of Service Design, aiming to contribute to those involved with the achievement of service consistency. More specifically, the paper presents a set of guidelines that intend to facilitate aesthetic evaluation of services. In order to achieve these results the researchers have performed a literature review followed by a field study carried out through a Focus Group. The results have shown that the service aesthetic elements are partially distinct from those associated with aesthetics as it is conventionally dealt in product design. The highly intangible nature of services necessarily demands an analytical scope that goes beyond the visceral perception of the physical world. Hence, aesthetic evaluation of services need to consider reflexive elements such as cultural idiosyncrasies, affectivity, self-image and relational messages associated with key touchpoints.
... Desta forma, o objetivo é propor um protocolo de avaliação estética, capaz de auxiliar a manutenção da consistência estética em serviços prestados aos cidadãos.2. AVALIAÇÃO DA DIMENSÃO ESTÉTICA NO ÂMBITO DOS SERVIÇOSA experiência estética em serviços tem natureza multidimensional(LIU, 2003; CANDI, 2008), pois é quase impossível que apenas um sentido humano seja afetado. Enquanto no Design de produtos a avaliação estética pode ater-se a relação usuário x artefato, no âmbito dos serviços, a percepção estética é decorrente de múltiplos artefatos, múltiplos pontos de contato, de forma simultânea ou não, que estão presentes na jornada da experiência do usuário enquanto usa o serviço. ...
... A experiência estética em serviços tem natureza multidimensional (LIU, 2003;CANDI, 2008), pois é quase impossível que apenas um sentido humano seja afetado. Enquanto no Design de produtos a avaliação estética pode ater-se a relação usuário x artefato, no âmbito dos serviços, a percepção estética é decorrente de múltiplos artefatos, múltiplos pontos de contato, de forma simultânea ou não, que estão presentes na jornada da experiência do usuário enquanto usa o serviço. ...
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In this research, the Greek meaning of the term Aesthetics was considered, which denotes sensation, feeling and esthesia. It is understood that it is the task of aesthetics to analyze the complexes of human sensations and feelings, investigating their integration in the physical and mental activities of man, focusing on the productions (artistic or not) of sensibility, in order to determine their relationships with knowledge, reason and ethics. Too, it is understood that aesthetics denotes man's ability to feel and perceive himself and the world as an integrated whole, inspiring and leading perceptions and sensations within himself.
... The importance of characterising the affective content of images is often outlined (Lang et al., 1997;Courbet and Fourquet-Courbet, 2003;Tisseron, 2003;Mikels et al., 2005), as well as the importance of aesthetic criteria in the appreciation of an interface, in the functional estimation (Dion et al., 1972;Jordan, 2002;Yamamoto and Lambert, 1994;Kurosu and Kashimura, 1995;Tractinsky, 1997;Moshagen et al., 2009;Dube and Lebel, 2003;Sonderegger et al., 2014;Tay, 2015). The influence of ergonomic criteria in the hedonic assessment has been studied by Liu (2003), the emotional impact of the brand in the product acceptability has been emphasised by Gobé (2001), and the link between satisfaction and emotion, especially in the use of products has been mentioned by Mano and Oliver (1993). Norman (2005) suggests that the attractiveness of a design can be perceived on several cognitive levels. ...
Article
In this article, we assess the emotional value of the chairs from the collections design, objects and furniture of the museum of modern and contemporary art in Saint-Etienne. The aim of this research is to study emotional responses to visual perception of chairs from declarative measurements based on: 1) emotional measurements made using the circumplex model which collects valence and arousal; 2) the evaluation of six appearance descriptors which describe aesthetics, safety and comfort. Using a mathematical model based on a neural network, an 'estimated valence' is then derived from the evaluation of these emotional descriptors. This 'estimated valence' is finally compared to the 'verbalised valence'. The results show that there is a significant correlation between verbalised and 'estimated valence'. These results attest that the evaluation of the six proposed descriptors could predict the emotional value of the chairs.
... Pretty basic."/ App reviewer Aesthetic appreciation: Aesthetic appreciation refers to "an interplay between an individual's visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, haptic, and even proprioceptive systems" [60]. Aesthetic appreciation can be seen through the visual appearance of the components and features of the product. ...
Conference Paper
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Previous research on the effectiveness of wellness mHealth apps focused on the design and features of such apps and paid insufficient attention to how the whole relationship between the apps and users impact use. Using affordance theory, we investigated what wellness mHealth apps afford to users and why these affordances are not actualized by all users. We conducted a qualitative study, collecting data from apps' reviews and from fifteen participants who used multiple wellness mHealth apps. Our grounded theory analysis revealed four shared affordances (promoting goals, comparing oneself to others, coaching, and nurturing) related to the use of wellness mHealth apps and three immediate concrete outcomes (habit formation, self-awareness, and goal attainment) reached after the affordances were actualized. Nonetheless, factors such as information overload, aesthetic appreciation, and users' characteristics may impact users' actualizations of the shared affordances and prevent some users from reaching their immediate concrete outcomes.
... Design criteria for learning technologies has largely been based on ease of use rather than the evaluation of aesthetics (Liu, 2003); however, evidence is accumulating to demonstrate that visually pleasing learning technologies enhance learning (Pomales-García, Liu, & Mendez, 2005) and motivation to learn (Zain, Tey, & Goh, 2011). For example, ratings of perceived attractiveness of an e-learning module have been found to be positively correlated with the number of content relevant words recalled (Pomales-García et al., 2005). ...
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Research has demonstrated that students’ learning outcomes and motivation to learn are influenced by the visual design of learning technologies (e.g., learning management systems or LMS). One aspect of LMS design that has not been thoroughly investigated is visual complexity. In two experiments, postsecondary students rated the visual complexity of images of LMS after exposure durations of 50-500 ms. Perceptions of complexity were positively correlated across timed conditions and working memory capacity was associated with complexity ratings. Low-level image metrics were also found to predict perceptions of the LMS complexity. Results demonstrate the importance of the visual complexity of learning technologies and suggest that additional research on the impact of LMS design on learning outcomes is warranted.
... The importance of characterising the affective content of images is often outlined (Lang et al., 1997;Courbet and Fourquet-Courbet, 2003;Tisseron, 2003;Mikels et al., 2005), as well as the importance of aesthetic criteria in the appreciation of an interface, in the functional estimation (Dion et al., 1972;Jordan, 2002;Yamamoto and Lambert, 1994;Kurosu and Kashimura, 1995;Tractinsky, 1997;Moshagen et al., 2009;Dube and Lebel, 2003;Sonderegger et al., 2014;Tay, 2015). The influence of ergonomic criteria in the hedonic assessment has been studied by Liu (2003), the emotional impact of the brand in the product acceptability has been emphasised by Gobé (2001), and the link between satisfaction and emotion, especially in the use of products has been mentioned by Mano and Oliver (1993). Norman (2005) suggests that the attractiveness of a design can be perceived on several cognitive levels. ...
... While ergonomics and human factors research have contributed immensely to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machineenvironment systems, largely ignored as a topic of systematic scientific research in human factors and ergonomics is aesthetics [42]. For clothing quality to meet the demands and expectations of customers, it may be based in part on the aesthetic appearance and the quality of the material used [43]. ...
Article
Background: Before the emergence of ready-to-wear (RTW) garments, production of apparels relied on ergonomics considerations through body measurements (anthropometry) of individual users. This is an indication of the inherent nature of ergonomics in apparel fabrication; however active mention of ergonomics related to fashion engineering and design before then was lacking. Objective: This article seeks to emphasize the need for an organized framework of knowledge for ergonomics suited to fashion engineering and design education and research. Methods: Relevant literature have been reviewed and three main knowledge components of ergonomics relevant to fashion engineering and design have been identified and classified based on standard classes of areas within the general field of ergonomics. Results: Areas of ergonomics applications in fashion engineering and design under the headings of consumer product design, i.e. apparel design, workspace or office design, manufacturing process design and man-machine system, have been discussed. Conclusion: Comprehensive ergonomics education related to fashion engineering and design consist of the three main knowledge components: (1) the five aspects of ergonomics, (2) anthropometry and biomechanics and (3) the three domains of ergonomics.
... Traditionally, products have been designed with two major components in mind: aesthetics and functionality. Aesthetics refers to the perception of attractiveness of the product, while functionality depends upon the operation performed by the product (Liu, 2003). Aesthetics is widely applied in product design because it is known to affect the market value of the product for the customer. ...
Thesis
Ergonomic designs have positive impact on the end-user experience of any product. One of the main challenges is to accommodate a range of end-users, for which the concept of adjustability has been found to be very effective. The backrest in a forklift, for example, is provided for comfortable driving in the form of leaning/sitting postures. An ergonomic backrest has to consider the anthropometric variation in the human population to ensure optimum levels of comfort for everyone. This study provides a comprehensive methodology for developing an ergonomic backrest by combining the features of two different backrests and incorporating the adjustability concept into the design. Our study comprised of both, field and laboratory evaluations of the original and new designs for a variety of anthropometric characteristics (5th, 50th and 95th percentiles of both males and females). Using the phenomenon of restlessness, discomfort of the user was associated with the amount of body movement, where we have used the motion-capture system and the force platform to quantify the individuals’ movements. The results of the field evaluation indicated that the new backrest improved comfort during both static and driving tasks by ~10% and 23%, respectively. The results of objective metrics showed a reduction in the mean torso and the maximum center of pressure change of locations by 300 and 6 mm, respectively, for the new design. Further, the change in movement during the trials as assessed by the deviation in center of pressure measure was decreased (12%, p-value=0.32) for the new design, compared to the increase of 47% (p-value=0.0078) for the original design, suggesting that new backrest performed better over time. Based on these findings, the new design was further improved. Outcomes of this study may facilitate higher comfort levels to a wide range of forklift operators using a new adjustability concept.
... This trend has been 3 reflected in various introduced concepts and methodologies. Some of them are aesthetic 4 ergonomics (Liu, 2003), design for pleasure (Helander and Khalid, 2012;Jordan, 2000), 5 emotional design (Norman, 2004), funology (Blythe et al., 2003), hedonomics (Hancock,6 Pepe, and Murphy, 2005), and Kansei (feeling) engineering (Nagamachi, 1995). Inspired 7 by the 'affective design' technical committee of the International Ergonomics Association 8 (IEA), this research adopts the term affective design to imply these related research 9 efforts in the domain of Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF/E) discipline. ...
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Assessing design solutions via domain-specific emotions has been widely concerned and explored in the field of affective design. However, the examination and accommodation of individual differences have not been settled sufficiently in the literature. To address this research gap, this paper proposes a descriptive approach to draw calibrated collective emotion patterns in survey-based affective design assessment. A ‘Repertory Grid Interview linked with Rate-All-That-Apply’ (RGI/RATA) procedure is firstly conducted to elicit and code individual’s personal emotional descriptions into mid-level Emotion Words (EWs) and to gather emotion data grids with each grid quantified by an individual’s own EWs. The obtained individualised emotion data grids are then subjected to Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) to extract collective emotional space, thus to enable conceptualising collective emotional dimensions and measuring calibrated collective responses. A case study demonstrating the implementation process for a simple project of appearance design assessment is also presented. Practitioner Summary: The proposed methodology may help a design team to investigate the shared patterns of domain-specific emotions through a single assessment survey. With the provided post hoc analysis tools, designers may also evaluate multi-level individual differences (e.g. regarding user groups or even intra-individual) quantitatively and at a low cost.
... If we think of the enormous number of office software users, even a minor increase in aesthetics might lead to a substantial improvement in the total productivity. Yet, practitioners should have realistic expectations for what aesthetics can add to performance -the ergonomics of workrelated applications is crucial (e.g., [47], [64]). Third, even as the moderator analysis was not able to explain the overall effect, it revealed that it might be beneficial to give special attention to aesthetics when mobile and software applications are concerned, especially in a working goal context when accuracy is important. ...
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Aesthetics has become a central construct in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and it has clear beneficial effects on users' perceptions and attitudes. Yet, do attractive interfaces actually enhance user performance? In the light of the importance of the construct and the mixed findings in various studies on the matter a systematic approach is urgently needed. Thus, the present meta-analysis examines in detail the effects of visual interface aesthetics of websites, software and other interactive systems on objective user performance. A systematic literature search yielded 25 eligible studies with 101 observed effects and a total of 3,025 participants. The conducted meta-analysis revealed a small significant overall effect of interface aesthetics on user performance (g = 0.12), while a high heterogeneity of effects was observed. As potential moderators, we tested the type of used interaction medium, task, goal orientation, measure of performance, measure of aesthetics, and aesthetics manipulation. None showed a significant moderating influence. Thus, aesthetics can be considered to have a small but heterogeneous influence on user performance that so far cannot be further resolved by moderating variables reported in eligible studies. Therefore, the discussion sketches avenues for future research and encloses a call to action for the HCI community.
... For instance, we expect that user would rate the left screen as more balanced and symmetrical than the right one because of unbalanced and asymmetrical color distribution in the right screen aesthetics of UI has been designed by Zen and Vanderdonckt (2014) or . The aesthetics has an impact on the overall satisfaction of users with the product (Liu, 2003), and it might influence the usability of user interfaces (Tractinsky et al., 2000). Hence, we could create design guidelines based on the metrics of the aesthetics. ...
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The analysis of user interfaces using quantitative metrics is a straightforward way to quickly measure interface usability and other various design aspects (such as the suitability of page layout or selected colors). Development and evaluation of objective metrics corresponding with user perception, however, usually requires a sufficiently large training set of user interface samples. Finding real user interface samples might not be easy. Therefore, we rather use generated samples. In such case, we need to provide a realistic‐looking appearance of samples. This paper describes a workflow of the preparation of such samples. It presents a configurable generator based on the composition of simple widgets according to a predefined model. It also describes a reusable library for simple creation of widgets using capabilities of the JavaScript framework Vue.js. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of the generator on a generation of dashboard samples which are used to evaluate existing metrics of interface aesthetics and show the possibility of their improvement.
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Background: In recent years, computational aesthetics and neuroaesthetics have provided novel insights into understanding beauty. Building upon the findings of traditional aesthetics, this study aims to combine these two research methods to explore an interdisciplinary approach to studying aesthetics. Method: Abstract artworks were used as experimental materials. Based on traditional aesthetics and in combination, features of composition, tone, and texture were selected. Computational aesthetic methods were then employed to correspond these features to physical quantities: blank space, gray histogram, Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), Local Binary Pattern (LBP), and Gabor filters. An electroencephalogram (EEG) experiment was carried out, in which participants conducted aesthetic evaluations of the experimental materials in different contexts (genuine, fake), and their EEG data were recorded to analyze the impact of various feature classes in the aesthetic evaluation process. Finally, a Support Vector Machines (SVMs) was utilized to model the feature data, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), context data, and subjective aesthetic evaluation data. Result: Behavioral data revealed higher aesthetic ratings in the genuine context. ERP data indicated that genuine contexts elicited more negative deflections in the prefrontal lobes between 200 and 1000 ms. Class II compositions demonstrated more positive deflections in the parietal lobes at 50–120 ms, while Class I tones evoked more positive amplitudes in the occipital lobes at 200–300 ms. Gabor features showed significant variations in the parieto-occipital area at an early stage. Class II LBP elicited a prefrontal negative wave with a larger amplitude. The results of the SVM models indicated that the model incorporating aesthetic subject and context data (ACC = 0.76866) outperforms the model using only parameters of the aesthetic object (ACC = 0.68657). Conclusion: A positive context tends to provide participants with a more positive aesthetic experience, but abstract artworks may not respond to this positivity. During aesthetic evaluation, the ERP data activated by different features show a trend from global to local. The SVM model based on multimodal data fusion effectively predicts aesthetics, further demonstrating the feasibility of the combined research approach of computational aesthetics and neuroaesthetics.
Article
This study aimed to explore the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), students’ interest and motivation in the history of mathematical (HoM) concepts, and students’ cognitive understanding (SCU) of mathematics. A five-level Likert scale questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 232 junior high school mathematics teachers. It was found that, on average, students have higher levels of interest, motivation, and cognitive understanding when they are taught utilizing HoM concepts as a pedagogy. The correlation analysis reveals that there is a positive relationship between each of the independent variables and the dependent variable. The regression analysis also shows that teachers’ PCK and students’ interest were strong predictors of SCU, while students’ motivation was a weaker predictor. Hence, it can be said that teachers’ PCK and students’ interest play crucial roles in promoting SCU of using HoM concepts. Further studies are recommended to explore how historical context impacts students’ confidence, enjoyment, and aspirations in mathematics-related fields, which would contribute to understanding the broader implications of incorporating history in mathematics instruction.
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Excellent tea packaging design wins customers and enhances branding. This report studies tea packaging design elements and gives designers constructive references to efficiently improve tea packaging design. The authors of this study first obtained consumers' perception of tea packaging through card sorting and semantic differential (SD). Second, the consumers' Kansei dimensions were extracted by Procrustes analysis (PA). Third, eye tracking technology thoroughly analysed the consumers' eye movement indexes. This technology analysed eye moment as the subjects were exposed to various packaging design elements in order to identify variance, key design elements and outliers.
Thesis
Ergonomics based design offers safe, comfortable and efficient products by considering human aspects. Ergonomically designed products prevent fatigue and discomfort. On the other hand, aesthetics as a link between a product and the user's emotion contributes to obtaining more desirable products for the user. To develop products with aesthetic and ergonomic benefits, multiple factors must be considered simultaneously. The literature presents the strategic focus on product design, arguing that the aesthetics and ergonomics dimensions may help a product to be a commercial success. The designer's decision-making in the concept design stage has a significant impact in the success of the product. Therefore, parametric and generative design become suitable approaches in the design process. Additionally this thesis presents a hybrid methodology to be adopted in concept design stage. This methodology will also utilise a parametric design algorithm. This proposed research work aims towards a multi-criteria algorithm to assist the designer in the concept design phase to come up with better product design considering aesthetic and ergonomic criteria. The fundamental contribution of the algorithm lies in its focus on multi-criteria analysis and its ability to include new factors in the evaluation of possible solutions. Aesthetic and ergonomic concepts like golden ratio, form, colour, texture, gender and anthropometry composed these multi criteria. To develop this new methodology a thorough literature review was used. The purpose of this study is to find product evaluation methods considering aesthetics and ergonomics and does not consider public surveys for evaluation. Problems in the aesthetic evaluation are discussed later in the work. A case study is used to validate this design methodology. Finally, the aesthetics and ergonomic elements were modified by using Grasshopper software as a graphical algorithm editor. The results indicate a need for reliable objective evaluation methods. As a consequence of the study, suggestions for improving and applying existing methods are proposed.
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Modern neuroscience has advanced to embrace the study of cognitive processes of aesthetics in recent times. Design as a discipline from its inception had laid emphasis on academic pursuit of aesthetics. While design approaches solutions to ill-defined problems through a creative and user-centric process, the aesthetic delight of the designed solutions is one of the primary goals of a designer’s pursuit. Interestingly, the pursuit of aesthetics, called ‘Sundaram’ in Sanskrit language, had also been the central goal of the cultural pursuits in India as famously expressed in ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’. This paper argues that there is a sociocultural need to place emphasis on education of aesthetics as it has immense benefits for social good. In search of models which can be operationalised in design pedagogy, this paper discusses prevalent neurocognitive models of aesthetics and identifies gaps in them. This paper then proposes a yogic neurodesign framework that can fulfil the gaps in prevalent models. The proposed yogic framework looks at the culmination of mind into the enjoyment of aesthetics as expressed in ‘Soundarya Lahari’ by Shankaracharya. Drawing upon the ancient yogic literature and modern neuroscientific findings, this paper presents a framework for the education of aesthetics using yogic neurodesign, especially keeping sociocultural benefits of aesthetics education in view.KeywordsAestheticsNeuroscienceYogaEducation
Conference Paper
Perceived visual aesthetics is of great significance for the design of human-computer interaction interface. There is much research on interface aesthetics in the academic community. There is evidence that perceived visual aesthetics has an important impact on user experience and interaction, and many scholars have put forward the calculation model of perceived visual aesthetics. This study research the text overlay image. Compared with the traditional text surround image, the text overlay image changes the visual perception aesthetics of the image by embedding the text into the image. Text overlay image is usually superimposed on the image by a piece of text or several pieces of text, which blocks the background area of the image and affects the overall interface aesthetics. However, the text overlay image is applied to various places. In this study, the background white space calculation model (WBB) based on bounding box is used to calculate the perceived visual aesthetics. Explore the visual aesthetics of text overlay images under three proportions: golden section ratio (1:0.618), root mean square ratio (1:0.707) and integer ratio (1:1). The experiment uses the calculation model to obtain the proportion of the blank area of the text covered image in the image background. The subjects' subjective evaluation of different proportion interfaces is obtained through the Likert scale. The results of the two are compared to obtain the proportion of the optimal visual beauty under the text covered image. The results show that: ① in terms of the image length width ratio, the visual aesthetics of the text overlay image with the length width ratio of 1:0.618 is better when the text line spacing is 1 times, and the visual aesthetics of the image with the length width ratio of 1:0.707 is better when the text line spacing is 1.5 times. When the line spacing is 1 and 1.5 times, the visual aesthetics of the image with length width ratio of 1:1 is the worst; ② In terms of line spacing, when the line spacing is the same (1 or 1.5 times the line spacing), the subjects think that the proportion of the blank area of the text covered image with high visual aesthetics in the image background is 0.7218-0.9040. When the line spacing is different (1 and 1.5 times the line spacing), it can be speculated that the visual aesthetics of the text covered image is closely related to the blank area of the image background, In order to obtain a text overlay image with high visual aesthetics, we should consider not only the proportion of the image, but also the blank area of the image background.
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This article considers the application of the principles of ergonomics in examining contemporary furniture design. The study probes how aesthetics and ergonomics have shifted design thinking from the previous century. The objective of research is to examine user experience and how these are translated into appeals based on understanding anthropometric values of comfort and functionality. Some issues of aesthetics will be highlighted through two case studies of chair designs. The aim is to critique the importance of relationships between aesthetics, ergonomics, and user experience, through assessments of anthropometric values such as comfort and posture, against visual characteristics. Findings indicate that chair design solutions must prioritise ergonomics in achieving the goals of commercial design. This should not mean sacrificing aesthetics, but an integrated approach that applies human-centred design principles whereby consumer perceptions of design comfort are as important as visual aesthetics.
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Background: Backpacks used by children is a global concern, because may cause musculoskeletal discomforts and pain. Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the usability and effects on gait kinematics wearing the Trunkpack versus a traditional backpack and no backpack. Methods: Twenty-four children (9 to 11 years old) from a public school participated in this study. The usability was evaluated after a five-week testing period using a questionnaire. Gait kinematics was evaluated (Vicon) when the children were wearing a standard backpack, an optimized backpack (Trunkpack), and no backpack. Both backpacks were loaded with 10% of body weight. Results: Was observed more trunk, hip and knee flexion when the children carried a standard backpack in comparison using the Trunkpack and not carrying a backpack (p < 0.01). The Trunkpack and no backpack were similar. The Trunkpack was well accepted by the schoolchildren (81% positive responses); 79% liked the head opening, 88% liked the waist straps, and 83% liked the facility to put and take objects in and out of the Trunkpack. Conclusion: Trunkpack requires less postural adjustments during gait than a standard backpack. Gait kinematics with the Trunkpack was comparable to the gait without carrying a backpack.
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In the era of rapid product update and intense competition, aesthetic design has been increasingly important in various fields, as aesthetic feelings of customers largely influence their purchase preferences. However, the quantification of aesthetic feeling is still a very subjective process due to vague evaluations. The determination of form parameters according to aesthetics is difficult hitherto. Aesthetic measure recently arises as a prominent tool for this purpose using formulas derived from aesthetic theory. But as revealed by existing studies, it needs to be customized with deterministic and objective methods to be reliable in practice use. To facilitate this application, this paper proposes an evolutionary form design method, integrating aesthetic dimension selection and parameter optimization. After summarizing initial aesthetic dimensions, aesthetic dimension selection based on expert decision-making and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is carried out. With filtered aesthetic dimensions, design parameters are optimized with NSGA-II (non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm). The quality of pareto solutions obtained to be design schemes is assessed by three criteria to conduct sensitivity analysis of cross and mutation probability and population size. Our experiment using bicycle form design shows that the proposed evolutionary form design method can generate numerous and variant aesthetic design schemes rapidly. This is very useful for both product redesign and innovative new product development.
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Today’s car market is limited not only to the passenger as well as sports car segments. Although, people start liking cars with big engines, large front grill sizes, sharp corners, etc. The main aim of this research study is to find the physical features of a vehicle that were responsible for its masculine nature. This study uses the average value method among the twelve cars, and the survey is conducted among thirty respondents. It enables the study of the relationship between the feeling of masculine nature of the vehicle and their physical factor, which leads toward their masculine nature. By this method, a large wheelbase, ample ground clearance, and front grills play a substantial part in the masculine nature of the car. Outcomes of this study can aid the designers in understanding the consumer’s likability or perceptions when they purchase a vehicle. If designers involve this consent while designing any SUVs, it will increase the company’s profit.KeywordsConsumersClosed-ended surveyMasculine naturePerceptionVehicle
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Today’s development focuses on the integration of affective meaning into products and services. Kansei Engineering (KE) is a technology that establishes the relationship between customers’ kansei and design elements to optimize the design for customers. This study aims to identify the research status and emerging trends in KE research by using visualization analysis with CiteSpace. We retrieve 2830 articles from the core collection of the Web of Science (1995–2021). First, based on the chronological distribution and background of research institutions, journals, literatures, countries and core authors, this study analyzes the main contributions, knowledge sources, interdisciplinary characteristics and major research domains of KE. Second, the research hotspots and cutting-edge technologies are intuitively presented and analyzed to reveal the knowledge structure and research frontier. Finally, this research expounds upon the evolution and developmental process of each stage and proposes the emerging trends of KE research, which are the use of big data in the Internet era, multidisciplinary cooperation, and the integration of multiple mathematical algorithms to serve multiapplication practice. This is also the orientation for further research on KE in the succeeding stages.
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Prototyping plays a pivotal role in the engineering design process. Prototypes represent physical or digital manifestations of design ideas, and as such act as effective communication tools for designers. While the benefits of prototyping are well-documented in research, the fundamental ways in which the construction of a prototype affects designers' reflection on and evaluation of their design outcomes and processes are not well understood. The relationships between prototypes, designers' communication strategies, and recollection of design processes is of particular interest in this work, as preliminary research suggests that novice designers tend to struggle to clearly articulate the decisions made during the design process. This work serves to extend prior work and build foundational knowledge by exploring the evaluation of design outcomes and processes, and communication strategies employed by novice designers during prototyping tasks. A controlled in-situ study was conducted with 45 undergraduate engineering students. Results from qualitative analyses suggest that a number of rhetorical patterns emerged in students' communications, suggesting a complicated relationship exists between prototyping, communication, and design cognition.
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Tools available for enhancing and sharing knowledge include intelligent agents, Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), among other solutions and paradigms. Collaborative computing became possible due to the advances in social networking, collaborative virtual environments, multi-touch screen-based technologies, as well as ambient, ubiquitous, and wearable computing. Examples of simulations in various domains include virtual computing machines, transient public displays of the data, mining for patterns in data, and visualizations of past events with the use of immersive technologies, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Further discussion relates to the tools for creating and publishing interactive 3D media and the Second Life culture.
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Location plays a major role in outdoor atmospherics, which can provide an opportunity for the restaurant owner to create a strong first impression on consumers. This study investigated customer perspectives regarding the placement of cafés by employing a Kansei engineering–based approach. In this approach, the location-related features that are of concern to customers and Kansei words that are used by customers to express their impressions regarding a café’s outdoor atmospherics were identified through a customer survey and feature fatigue analysis. The associations between the location-related features and café impressions and their effects on customers’ visiting intention were also examined based on the stimulus–organism–response model. This approach achieved a customer Kansei–oriented location evaluation for cafés. The findings provide café proprietors a preliminary guideline for using location-related outdoor atmospherics as a strategy to produce the desired customer Kansei and reactions.
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This study focus on the combination of enterprise logo, slogan and announcement documents. With the three factors, we developed a text-overlaid image Compositions information system for business. “Logo” became an English word in 1937. The logo has become an important feature of the corporate image. It is interpreted as meaning of “identity” or “trademark” which is used to identify a small visual design works. Those works can be used for the purpose of cooperate identity in many industries. Being based on the aesthetic view point, the study found a method to calculate block visual weight and setting text color by color difference formula. We used the aesthetic formula to complete weight balance degree examination and font size prediction to get the optimization of text-overlaid image compositions. The optimization was applied to simplify the process of enterprise announcement preparation. The other object is to integrate logo and slogan to appear a remarkable impression. The developed text-overlaid image Compositions system play a role of automatic typesetting to find a good way of designing the location of image and text. The user just pay attention to the content of documents and never minded about the layout of logo and slogan. The major help of the system is to promote the enterprise announcement documents designing efficiency. We provide this system for some SMEs to try to understand the practicality of system. Finally we carried out a questionnaire survey to test the user’s attitude about the system from three perspectives, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and behavior intention. The collection data of users’ opinion shows that the text-overlaid image Compositions information system generally achieve satisfied standard. Overall, users give this system a lot of positive comments. The information system is also considered to be very helpful for the process of making announcements in practice.
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The consistency of physical attractiveness ratings across cultural groups was examined. In Study 1, recently arrived native Asian and Hispanic students and White Americans rated the attractiveness of Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White photographed women. The mean correlation between groups in attractiveness ratings was r = .93. Asians, Hispanics, and Whites were equally influenced by many facial features, but Asians were less influenced by some sexual maturity and expressive features. In Study 2, Taiwanese attractiveness ratings correlated with prior Asian, Hispanic, and American ratings, mean r = .91. Supporting Study 1, the Taiwanese also were less positively influenced by certain sexual maturity and expressive features. Exposure to Western media did not influence attractiveness ratings in either study. In Study 3, Black and White American men rated the attractiveness of Black female facial photos and body types. Mean facial attractiveness ratings were highly correlated (r = .94), but as predicted Blacks and Whites varied in judging bodies.
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Does formal art training educate the eye by enabling the viewer to carry out the type of in-depth analysis of the composition elements called for in Berlyne's theory? Do differences in visual exploration contribute to aesthetic judgment? To answer these questions, the present study compares visual exploration patterns of art-trained and untrained viewers who judged compositions that differed in balance through manipulation of symmetrical organization.
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Aesthetic preference is hypothetically a positive function of the degree to which the mental representation (REP) of a stimulus is activated. Because more typical stimuli are coded by mental REP capable of greater activation, preference should be positively related to prototypicality. This was the case in 5 experiments on color preference. Successive hedonic contrast can be viewed as a form of priming. A color prime laterally inhibits REPs of similar hues but also indirectly activates them through the cognitive unit that codes the superordinate color category. Preference for one of these hues will be increased or decreased, depending on whether the net effect of priming was activation or inhibition. Several experiments showed that typicality of the prime and the prime's relatedness to the target—rather than preference for the prime—determine preference for target stimuli: Less preferred primes can decrease as well as increase preference for more preferred targets of the same hue. Category-name primes increase preference for prototypical colors and decrease preference for nonprototypical colors because the net results of such priming are activation of REPs of prototypes and inhibition of REPs of nonprototypes. A mathematical model of hedonic contrast offers a good description of the data from the priming experiments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Examined the consequences of mate preferences for the processes of assortative mating and sexual selection. In Study 1, 92 married couples (aged 18–40 yrs) completed measures such as the California Psychological Inventory, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Data were used to identify (a) the mate characteristics that were consensually more and less desired, (b) the mate characteristics that showed strong sex differences in their preferred value, (c) the degree to which married couples were correlated in selection preferences, and (d) the relations between expressed preferences and the personality and background characteristics of obtained spouses. Marital preference factors included Religious, Kind/Considerate, Artistic/Intelligent, and Easygoing/Adaptable. Study 2, with 100 unmarried undergraduates, replicated the sex differences and consensual ordering of mate preferences found in Study 1, using a different methodology. Alternative hypotheses are presented to account for the replicated sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and earning potential. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Kansei Engineering was developed as a consumer-oriented technology for new product development. It is defined as “translating technology of a consumer's feeling and image for a product into design elements”. Kansei Engineering (KE) technology is classified into three types, KE Type I, II, and III. KE Type I is a category classification on the new product toward the design elements. Type II utilizes the current computer technologies such as Expert System, Neural Network Model and Genetic Algorithm. Type III is a model using a mathematical structure.Kansei Engineering has permeated Japanese industries, including automotive, electrical appliance, construction, clothing and so forth. The successful companies using Kansei Engineering benefited from good sales regarding the new consumer-oriented products.Relevance to industryKansei Engineering is utilized in the automotive, electrical appliance, construction, clothing and other industries. This paper provides help to potential product designers in these industries.
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Cinq expériences sur la perception de 20 reproductions de peintures non occidentales et pré-Renaissance: (1) jugement de ressemblance ou dissemblance en présentation par couples; (2) jugements portés sur des variables affectives et collatives; (3) évaluation du style; (4) temps d'observation; (5) jugement preférentiel en présentation par couples. Le classement multidimensionnel et I'analyse factorielle confirment la plupart des résultats obtenus dans une étude précédente portant sur des peintures post-Renaissance. L'échelle de complexité s'avère toutefois liée de moins près aux autres échelles et moins importante dans la détermination du temps d'observation que dans l'étude précédente. On observe une corrélation canonique significative entre les structures factorielles dérivées des échelles portant sur le style, quand on les applique aux peintures exotiques et pré-Renaissance ainsi qu'aux peintures post-Renaissance. Les dimensions du style identifiées par des rotations Varimax diffèrent toutefois d'une étude à l'autre et exigent done des designations diiférentes.
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Aesthetic preference is hypothetically a positive function of the degree to which the mental representation of a stimulus is activated. Because more typical stimuli are coded by mental representations capable of greater activation, preference should be positively related to prototypicality. We found this to be the case in five experiments on color preference. Successive hedonic contrast can be viewed as a form of priming. A color prime laterally inhibits representations of similar hues but also indirectly activates them through the cognitive unit that codes the superordinate color category. Preference for one of these hues will be increased or decreased, depending on whether the net effect of priming was activation or inhibition. Several experiments showed that typicality of the prime and the prime's relatedness to the target-rather than preference for the prime-determine preference for target stimuli: Less preferred primes can decrease as well as increase preference for more preferred targets of the same hue. Category-name primes increase preference for prototypical colors and decrease preference for nonprototypical colors because the net results of such priming are activation of representations of prototypes and inhibition of representations of nonprototypes. A mathematical model of hedonic contrast is developed and shown to provide a good description of the data from the priming experiments.
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Many products compete on the basis of aesthetic appeal as well as price and brand image. Analysis of consumer reactions to attributes not directly related to a product's functional utility is essential to intelligent decisions about proposed additions to the product line. The author describes a method of deriving market segmentation information from consumer intention to purchase evaluations of a selection of product designs.
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A hypothesis that the shape of the binocular visual field determines the supposed preference for rectangles possessing dimensions similar to those of the golden section was tested by havltlg Ss draw pleasing rectangles. The results iudicated that rectangles were oriented in correspondence with the shape of the visual field but there was, generally, a failure to obtain ratios approximating the golden section.
Article
Different types of perceptual distortion due to affective overtones are identified. A procedure, which deals with problems of distortion more comprehensively than competing methods, is proposed and illustrated in the case of consumer aesthetics. The resulting bias-free joint space is clearly interpretable and performs relatively well in predicting affect.
Article
The concept of workload and its relationship to performance is introduced in this chapter. Four categories of workload measurement techniques (ratings, primary and secondary task measures, and physiological indices) are reviewed, examples of each category are described, and their strengths and weaknesses are summarized. The importance of carefully formulating the question which a measure is to address is emphasized, and it is argued that the question should guide the selection of measures. Issues relevant to implementing and interpreting workload measures are discussed and some of the reasons that different measures provide apparently conflicting information about the same situation (i. e., dissociation) are addressed. Finally, the chapter concludes with a brief description of models that can be used to predict workload.
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James J Gibson introduced for the first time the word "affordances" in this 1977 paper.
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This article discusses the importance of incorporating the aesthetics and the ethics dimensions systematically in human factors. This more comprehensive view of aesthetic human factors allows us to realize that human factors must go beyond traditional concerns of safety, usability, and productivity, but aesthetic human factors is not simply about adding pleasure to design and it is not simply about tangible products. This article further describes a model and a dual-process research methodology for "engineering aesthetics." Sample applications of this methodology are also described.
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Human factors researchers and practitioners have been focusing research attention on the ease- of-use, productivity, safety, comfort, and effectiveness aspects of product and system design. This article argues that it is time that we add another important dimension to the fields of human factors research and practice—the aesthetic dimension. This article discusses the need for the establishment of a new scientific and engineering discipline that we can call "engineering aesthetics." This discipline addresses two major questions: How do we use engineering/scientific/mathematical methods to study the concepts of aesthetics in general and aesthetics in product, work, and system design in particular? How do we use engineering/scientific/mathematical methods to help make products, work, and human-machine- environment systems more aesthetic? This article identifies two special features that distinguish aesthetic appraisal of products and system design from aesthetic appreciation of art, and lays out a theoretical foundation as well as a two-process research methodology for engineering aesthetics.
Article
The present study attempted to determine what body parts and functions young adults use in judging physical attractiveness and how these body items are related to different dimensions of body esteem. College students completed the Body Esteem Scale and then rated the importance of body items in determining same-sex and opposite-sex attractiveness. Results indicated a good deal of congruence in men's and women's judgments of physical attractiveness. Aspects of male body esteem dealing with upper body strength and aspects of female body esteem dealing with weight concern figured prominently in these judgments. Findings further indicated that men generally have more positive attitudes toward their bodies than do women.
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Scientists and philosophers have searched for centuries for a parsimonious answer to the question of what constitutes beauty. We approached this problem from both an evolutionary and information-processing rationale and predicted that faces representing the average value of the population would be consistently judged as attractive. To evaluate this hypothesis, we digitized samples of male and female faces, mathematically averaged them, and had adults judge the attractiveness of both the individual faces and the computer-generated composite images. Both male (three samples) and female (three samples) composite faces were judged as more attractive than almost all the individual faces comprising the composites. A strong linear trend also revealed that the composite faces became more attractive as more faces were entered. These data showing that attractive faces are only average are consistent with evolutionary pressures that favor characteristics close to the mean of the population and with cognitive processes that favor prototypical category members.
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Text: book; for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in experimental psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Three experiments with 85 undergraduates compared the aesthetic quality of compositions based on the golden section rectangle with compositions based on a rectangle with the ratio of 1.5. Ss made preference rankings for patterns that were based either on the golden section rectangle or the 1.5 rectangle. Results show that patterns based on the 1.5 rectangle were slightly preferred over the patterns based on the golden section. It is concluded that the golden section does not have a special aesthetic quality as compared with the ratio 1.5, and that other characteristics of visual patterns are more important from an aesthetic point of view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
The purpose of this study was to quantify the consistency of preferences for simple geometric forms (isosceles triangles) in order to clarify the findings of previous studies on the subject. 12 triangles (altitude to base proportions ranging from .25" X 1" to 3" X 1" by .25" altitude steps) were combined in all possible combinations of two (66 pairs in all) and mimeographed on separate pages. 52 subjects checked the triangle preferred on each page. The method of paired comparisons was used to eliminate the effects of central tendency of judgment. The conclusion of the study was that with isosceles triangles having constant bases and variable altitudes, subjects chose with high consistency (median test-retest Rho of .85) triangles yielding ratios between 1 to 1 and 2 to 1 (altitude to base). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
A hypothesis that the shape of the binocular visual field determines the supposed preference for rectangles possessing dimensions similar to those of the golden section was tested by having Ss draw pleasing rectangles. The results indicated that rectangles were oriented in correspondence with the shape of the visual field but there was, generally, a failure to obtain ratios approximating the golden section.
Article
Twelve post-impressionistic paintings were manipulated along two dimensions: degree of realism (figurative vs. abstract) and colour (colour vs. black-and-white). The resulting 48 pictures were rated by three groups of twenty subjects each, on a number of rating scales. The three groups differed as to their expertise in art. Analyses of variance on the mean liking scores indicated that the negative effects of changing the original pictures to abstract or black-and-white versions decreased with increasing expertise. This differential impact of the experimental manipulations confirmed hypotheses about changes in taste due to artistic training.
Article
From a theoretical point of view, paired comparisons and the law of comparative judgment provide an excellent approach to the problem of psychological measurement. However, if a reasonably large number of stimuli are to be investigated, paired comparisons become extremely time-consuming and fatiguing to the subjects. A balanced incomplete block design, requiring multiple rank order judgments for each subject, provides an efficient experimental method for obtaining paired comparisons judgments. Features of the analysis proposed for this design are discussed in detail. A program for the analysis is available for the IBM 650 electronic computer.
Article
.— An INDSCAL analysis was performed on subjects' similarity judgements of all pairs of 12 landscape paintings. Three principal INDSCAL dimensions were identified by analysing responses to 24 unidimensional rating scales derived from previous experiments. The present findings, together with those of previously published studies, suggest that three of the principal dimensions of perception of art appear to be (1) Hedonic-Representational, (2) Clarity, (3) A Dynamic factor involving activity, balance and symmetry. It is suggested that although Complexity may be an important factor influencing responses to simple stimuli, its rôle in the perception of paintings is small, and has frequently been over-emphasised.
Article
The beauty of visual patterns is quantified, starting from the assumption that beauty is maximal when a maximum of effect is attained with a minimum of means applied. Birkhoff has based his theory of beauty on this assumption, but his specification of means and effect differs from the one presented here. In our conception, effect is specified as the number of independent regularities (R) of a pattern not accounted for by the simplest interpretation of the pattern. This variable is closely allied to the concept of conjunctive ambiguity. The irregularities of a pattern that are not constrained by additional regularities (P) make up the means term of the means-effect analogy. An index of beauty (M) is defined, M = R - P. It is shown that there is substantial correlation between M and preference judgments for a set of Birkhoff's polygons. It is further demonstrated that M has relevance to describe properties of the relation of beauty to complexity, data of experiments on the aesthetic attractivity of combinations of patterns, and preferences for certain proportions of simple figures above others.
Article
Traditionally, human factors have tended to concentrate on making products 'usable'--focusing on utilitarian, functional product benefits. This paper reports an interview-based study looking at the issue of 'pleasure' in product use. The study was a 'first pass' at addressing the hedonic and experiential benefits and penalties associated with product use, and at identifying the properties of a product that influence how pleasurable or displeasurable it is to use. Feelings associated with using pleasurable products included security, confidence, pride, excitement and satisfaction. Displeasurable products, meanwhile, were associated with feelings that included annoyance, anxiety, contempt and frustration. The properties of products that were salient in terms of influencing the level of pleasure/displeasure with a product included features, usability, aesthetics, performance and reliability. Responses to questions investigating behavioural correlates to pleasure in product use suggested that pleasurable products were used more regularly and that future purchase choices would be affected by the level of pleasure in product use. It is concluded that the issue of pleasure in product use involves more than usability alone. As the user's representative in the product creation process, the human factors specialist should consider many other factors in order to ensure that the user's experience of product use is maximised.
Article
We used 3 psychophysics methods to determine perceptible changes in seat height, seat pan angle, and backrest angle using an experimental chair. In the method of adjustment, the chosen chair settings were affected by the initial setting. For example, a high initial setting of the seat height led to a high selected setting and a low setting led to a low value. The difference between settings was referred to as not noticeable difference (NND). The method of limits was used to determine acceptable chair settings using verbal limits such as "too high" and "too low." Using the method of constant stimuli, just noticeable differences (JNDs) were determined for chair height (1.5 cm), seat pan angle (1.2 degrees) and backrest angle (1.7 degrees). The corresponding values for NNDs and verbal limits were about twice as large: chair height (2.5 cm), seat pan angle (4 degrees) and backrest angle (3 degrees). NNDs and verbal limits are unobtrusive measures that are considered more valid than JNDs, which exaggerate the need for adjustability. The results have practical implications for the design of office chairs.
Article
This article discusses the relationship between aesthetics, ethics, and the traditional research issues in human factors, and argues that it is important and beneficial both to the human society and to the human factors profession that we incorporate the aesthetic and the ethic dimensions explicitly and consciously in human factors research and practice. These two dimensions can help us put the current human factors research in a larger context. We can see more clearly the limitations of current research and the needs and challenges for research in new areas. The two dimensions also offer some new perspectives from which we can examine the current work systems and products, explain the demise of old work systems and products, and predict the possible emergence of new work systems and products.
Psychophysics: Method, Theory, and Application (Hillsdale
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