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Based on the work of Lakoff and Johnson, this paper argues that part of our product experience is rooted in bodily interactions between people and their environments. Lakoff and Johnson convincingly demonstrated that repeated bodily interactions of a similar kind lead to the formation of image schemas guiding our understanding of verbal expressions. Here, it is proposed that the same underlying principles also govern our understanding of the expression of products. If correct, product expressions theoretically structured by the same underlying schema must be highly related. An experimental study involving chairs partly confirmed this prediction. The paper closes with a tentative discussion on how a chair's perceived expression could be related to the embodiment of schemas in its spatial and material features. Products of industrial design, like those of architecture, are not only supposed to function in a strict utilitarian sense. Among industrial designers and architects it is well acknowledged that products also influence the way we experience our material environment. Although these experiences change constantly under the influence of context factors, such as trends, technological developments, etc., a designer is able to influence these experiences in a desired direction by manipulating a product's expression. Despite the extensive knowledge available for establishing the behavior of materials, technology, etc., determining the way a product's expression will be understood is less straightforward. In establishing a product's expression, designers often have to rely on subjective knowledge, personal views, and (cultural) values. Classic theories on perception and cognition offer knowledge of a kind too general to be applied in unique design situations. However, in recent studies in cognitive semantics an experientialist theory on perception and understanding is put forward that provides clues to how we understand human expressions (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980 and Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). According to this theory, experiences, arising in bodily interactions with the world, motivate our understanding of expressions of all kinds. The experientialist theory may be of interest for designers who intend to create a particular product expression. Before looking into this theory more closely, a brief historical overlook will be presented first, indicating that the role of the body in experiencing our world has been acknowledged ever since the end of the 19 th century.

This paper discusses the starting points and principles behind two design projects undertaken by students in the Industrial Design Department, Delft University of Technology. The students were included in the design of a hand driven four wheel go-cart and an expresso coffee machine. Preliminary conclusions drawn from the projects were encouraging.