This paper presents an empirical study into product form perception within the context of
communication. The study was driven by the main research question; ‘do users perceive the
same meaning from product appearance as designers intended, or is there a level of
mismatch?’ The emphasis is on meanings attributed to the visual domain of product form,
and more specifically the degree of correspondence between messages designers intend
users to receive and the messages that users actually construct. An empirical approach is
taken to contribute to the field, which is presently dominated by well-founded, but
theoretical, discussions. From the literature, four categories of appearance-based product
attributes are identified: 1) social values and positions; 2) usability and interaction; 3)
visual qualities; and 4) personality characteristics.
The fieldwork was conducted using newly designed Turkish seating furniture (n=8). A
combination of visual stimuli and semantic differential methods were used, generated from
research sessions with the original designers of the furniture (n=8) and representatives of
their target user group (n=80). The results revealed that although the summed overall
impression is close to designers’ intentions, there also exist some considerable differences
between designers’ intended messages and users’ perceived messages. Designers perform
less well at communicating product meanings related to: usability and interaction, and
personality characteristics. Accordingly, these are identified as priority areas for improved
message transmission.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
