Designer & Consumer: different emotions?

Transcription

1 Designer & Consumer: different emotions? The development of consumer products is one of many steps. From the initial idea to the gathering of raw materials, manufacturing and marketing. The consumer only sees the tip of the iceberg and often does not think about the origin of a product, e.g. how it was manufactured. The transformation of ideas into tangible objects is the field of activity of engineers and designers. Erik Adigard, a communication designer, once described this transformation as a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda, and philosophy. These aspects are used by designers to transfer their ideas into sketches and concepts. They are only limited by the imagination of the creator and can therefore lead to daring, new creations which can provoke many emotions. This case study is about the perceived emotions of people with and without a background in design. Furthermore, the way in which a concept is presented has been investigated in regard to perceived emotions. Study objective The aim for this case study was to investigate the perceived emotions towards concept images between people who have and do not have a background in design. Another aspect which has been investigated is the presentation of these images. More specific, if the addition of text to concept images will be of any influence towards the perceived emotions. In brief, the research was set to determine: The emotions each of the concept images elicit Which differences or similarities occur in perceived emotions How the addition of text to a concept image influences the perceived emotion

2 Study design To further clarify the study objective, it was determined there are four different entities which are of interest to the outcome of the test. These are (1)designer versus (2) no designer and (3)a visual setting versus (4)a visual+text setting. This resulted in two different PrEmo test cases, with almost the same lay- out. The difference lies in the fact that the stimuli in one test case had explanatory text along with the concept images, whereas the stimuli in the other test case just contained the images with a only a mentioning of the kind of object on display. At the beginning of the test the participants had to indicate whether they had a background or took any interest in design. This way, the four different entities could be investigated within these two test cases. In total, the test case was performed by 63 participant between 25 June 2010 and 6 July 2010; most of them were students. The image on the next page is an example of a stimulus which was used, in this case a concept of vacuum cleaner for children. As can be seen, this stimulus contains concept images accompanied by a description and some short notes near the images. The other test case showed the same images of this stimulus, only without the short notes near the images and the description just mentioned it was a vacuum cleaner for children.

3 Results The outcomes of the experiment were filtered according to the four entities and processed into graphs. It has to be taken into account that the case study has a limited amount of stimuli and relatively few participants, due to restricted time available and the overall scope of the course, which this case study is part of. The positive emotions are shown on the left; the negative emotions are displayed on the right. The participants were shown a number of stimuli and had to indicate on a four point scale how it affected them. These emotive profiles, varying from 0 (no affection towards a certain emotion) to 4 (high affection), can be seen on the next page. Designer vs No designer The next graph shows the perceived emotions towards the stimuli of people who have a background, or are interested in design, and people without it. As can be seen in the graph, the two groups perceive roughly the same emotions. However, there are slight differences in the experienced shame, pride and hope. An explanation could be that designers are more familiar with concept images and are less easily surprised. This could explain the slightly higher value of shame, as they may feel a sense of responsibility for a concept image, as if it was (or could be) designed by them. Visual vs Visual + text The results of the stimuli which contained either images or images accompanied by text, show more differences in perceived emotions between the two test groups. Especially the emotion desire is felt more intense when explanatory text is added to the concept images. This could well be due to the fact that mentioning the functions or specifications of a concept, creates a clearer and more concrete view of the product. The added text may act as a starting point for the brain to think of the possibilities this new product could have.

4 PrEmo appraisal One of the main advantages of the PrEmo tool is that it is intuitive and recognizable. People in general are highly skilled in discovering emotions, even if it is in the form of a cartoon or everyday items such as buildings or cars. By using the PrEmo tool s short cartoony animations, the viewer is able to relate to an emotion on a much higher level than a set of textual choices. Many participants liked the playful way in which the animated cartoons were shown. Personal and Background information Affiliations This case study was part of the course Design & Emotion, within the Master track Design & Styling at the University of Twente. During this course, Pieter Desmet gave a guest lecture about the PrEmo emotive measuring instrument, which was the starting point for this particular case study. His insights were of much use during the process of the experiment.

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