User experienced dimensions in product design : a consolidation of what academic researchers know and what design practitioners do

Abstract

Experience has become the new paradigm of product design. Designers seek to anticipate emotions or associations a user might have when in contact with their design. The factors that influence human product perception are diverse. We firstly show which product dimensions are currently investigated by design researchers. It becomes obvious that besides the usual suspects: form and colour, emotion and associations, there must be many others. We conducted a study to identify these and to estimate their pertinence in actual product conception. Word-based techniques like retrospective verbalization and mind mapping were employed. Semantic descriptors, analogies, and functionalities were highly represented. Sensations and emotions did only appear marginally among the abstract dimensions. The same low occurrence was seen for production procedures among the concrete dimensions. Other interesting dimensions found were interaction gestures, design motifs, and product components. An additional analysis of the participant mind maps on relations between the various dimensions showed many connections between e.g. material and texture or semantics and colour. Yet, these were rarely related to sensations and emotions. The insights widen the perspective on unexploited opportunities for design researchers to develop further conception strategies that allow the anticipation of user experience in product design.