Theories differ on how typicality and arousal influence aesthetic appraisal and whether these processes together interact or have independent effects on aesthetic appraisal. This research investigates the simultaneous effects of typicality and arousal on aesthetic appraisal for product designs by manipulating both processes separately: typicality by prototype deviation and arousal by colour saturation levels. We demonstrate that typicality has a curvilinear relationship with aesthetic appraisal. Additionally, arousal has a positive linear relationship with aesthetic appraisal of product designs. Moreover, arousal can influence aesthetic appraisal independent from typicality.

There is a lack of consistency regarding the scales used to measure aesthetic pleasure within design. They are often chosen ad hoc or adopted from other research fields without being validated for designed artifacts. Moreover, many scales do not measure aesthetic pleasure in isolation, but instead include its determinants (e.g., novelty). Therefore, we developed a new scale to measure aesthetic pleasure and included scales to measure its known determinants for discriminant validity purposes, which automatically led to validating these determinants as well. In the exploratory phase, we identified highly reliable items representative of aesthetic pleasure and its determinants across product categories. In the validation phase, we confirmed these findings across different countries (Australia, the Netherlands, Taiwan). The final scale consists of five items, "beautiful", "attractive, "pleasing to see", "nice to see", and "like to look at", that together reliably capture the construct of aesthetic pleasure. Several recommendations are formulated regarding the application of this scale in design studies and beyond.

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Esthetic principles describe the levels or combination of design dimensions that are esthetically appreciated. Current principles focus on dimensions connected to product design itself (e.g., unity and variety) or dimensions that refer to a product design's relationship to other product designs (e.g., typicality and novelty). However, product design also has a social significance—they help consumers shape their identity—and this social dimension has hitherto been overlooked in research on esthetic appreciation. In this paper, we propose and investigate the social esthetic principle “Autonomous, yet Connected.” In four studies, we show that a product's design leads to the highest esthetic appreciation if it strikes an optimal balance between nurturing the two seemingly opposite needs for connectedness and autonomy. Further, we show how conditions of safety and risk moderate the effects of the principle, which suggests our principle may have evolutionary grounding.

Styling or product appearance is well known for holding great influence on its differentiation, branding, and overall success in the market. However, the styling process is difficult due to the intuitive and subjective way in which designers evaluate designs. In particular, negotiating iterations between designers and engineers is challenging since engineers have objective, data-driven approaches to rationalize decisions whereas designers rely on instinct and intuition. While the literature shows sustained interest in this issue and provides methods to analyze appearance objectively, many approaches rely on abstracted or simplified versions of a product's appearance as the basis for analyses, ignoring the holistic nature of product appearance. This article contributes by proposing an improvement employing digital shape comparison tools applied to three-dimensional (3D) geometry of products, and generating data on differentiation in product shape—that is, the holistic styling analysis (HSA). The HSA provides an objective assessment of difference in appearance to form the basis for designers to rationalize styling to other stakeholders during the design process. The HSA is tested through an automotive industry case study. Results show the method adds objectivity to decision-making by providing objective reference measures for differentiation in the styling of previous and competing products. Such measures can be used to inform styling goals and to identify intended degrees of difference in key features while highlighting areas to maintain consistency. As such, we contribute by providing a means for styling designers to use data to drive their activities in the same manner as other stakeholders.

Tactile experiences are a pivotal part of consumer behavior and choice. However, very little is known about why consumers esthetically appreciate touching products.The principle of Unity-in-Variety, stating that consumers like to perceive variety but only when this variety is presented as a coherent whole, has been shown to partly explain consumers' esthetic appreciation in the visual domain. We theorize that the psychological mechanisms underlying the esthetic principle of Unity-in-Variety are modality-independent, and therefore that this principle also applies to consumers' tactile esthetic appreciation. Across three studies, using existing products and novel 3D printed product designs systematically manipulated along the perceptual dimensions of unity and variety, we show that both unity and variety independently contribute to tactile esthetic appreciation. Furthermore, because unity and variety are inherently partial opposites, esthetic appreciation of products is highest when both unity and variety are simultaneously maximized.

In order for styling (creation of a distinct visual identity for a new product) to be successful in the market, design decisions need to be aligned with marketing strategy decisions. Previous research has suggested a styling strategy model that focuses on the goals of styling (attention drawing, recognition, symbolic meanings) by considering the degree and direction of differentiation from the products in a current portfolio, the succession of product generations, and product competitors. Using these strategies may guide product designers in their styling decisions so that they are aligned with marketing strategy goals. However, research has shown that, while product designers and marketers work towards the same goals, the difference in the way they justify styling decisions can cause difficulties in communication, rationalization and subsequent dismissal of ideas by the other party. Marketers believe that knowledge upon which styling decisions are based should be measurable and generated from competitive analysis and consumer insights, while product designers rely on intuition, experience and observations. In this research we aim to bridge this gap between marketers and product designers to improve the strategic styling decision-making process. Through a case study with Crown Lager beer bottles we developed a method that measures changes in styling compared to previous product designs within the succession of product generations, as well as the differences in styling compared to that of current competitors. This numerical information is then mapped to market data (e.g., revenue and changes in market share). We show how the combination of these data sets aids in identifying previous styling strategy in terms of degree and direction of styling changes, and how this can be used by the design team to justify a styling strategy to marketers using the knowledge and truths that align with what marketers are used to. We contend that this method will facilitate improved shared understanding between design and marketing teams, thereby aiding successful styling decision-making in a company.