Aesthetic Design Process: Descriptive Design Research and Ways Forward

Abstract

Consumer response to designed products has a profound effect on how products are interpreted, approached and used. Product design is crucial in determining this consumer response. Research in this field has been centered on studying the relationship between product features and subjective responses of users and consumers to those features. The subject of aesthetic or styling design process has been relatively neglected despite the important role of this process in fulfilling intended consumer response through product design. In this paper, we present a review of descriptive design research on aesthetic design process, and highlight limitations of this research. We also suggest opportunities for further descriptive research on the subject of aesthetic design process.

Shaping Products: Differences Between Expert and Novice Industrial Designers

“…The expert designer's information use in shaping the product Some authors have suggested that the process of shaping products is tacit and intuitive in nature (e.g. Tovey, 1997;Jagtap and Jagtap, 2015). In contrast to such suggestions, our research has indicated that some aspects of this process can be systematic, structured, and can be revealed by the think aloud protocol method, as suggested by the informational behaviour of the expert designer.…”

“…The visual appearance of products affects consumer perception and evaluation of product properties (Hekkert, 2006). Industrial designers play a key role in shaping a product's visual appearance, influencing consumer response and product success (Warell, 2001;Crilly et al, 2009;Jagtap and Jagtap, 2015). In the design process, they may access and use information on a variety of topics, e.g.…”

“…information on products of clients and competitors, styling trends, etc. Whilst several studies have been devoted to studying how consumers respond to products (Orth and Malkewitz, 2008), design researchers have given relatively little attention to the process of shaping a product's visual appearance (Crilly et al, 2009;Jagtap and Jagtap, 2015). Recent studies also stress the need of more research on descriptive accounts of designers' activities in shaping products, highlighting the paucity of research on this subject (e.g.…”

Research on the mechanism of emotional design in Chinese cultural and creative products

“…Anderson [25] proposed levels of product design that are practical, reliable, usable, convenient, enjoyable and meaningful. Ji et al [26] believed that the more obvious the sensory quality characteristics of the product, the higher the consumers' preference for the product, and proposed that the design vocabulary of cultural and creative products should be oriented towards the simple and clean design, fashionable and modern appearance, and meet the needs of different ethnic groups through the characteristics of charm, beauty and creativity; Bhandari et al [27] established the correlation between product elements and users' perceptual images, and proposed the measurement standards with form, color, material and technology, and innovative function as the main attributes; Jagtap [28,29] proposed product form attributes and emotional scales, arguing that product form is important in determining consumer response and product success, and that it triggers certain characteristics and emotions to help designers design their products.…”

Research on the mechanism of emotional design in Chinese cultural and creative products

“…Designers need to develop scales to assess whether design concepts are effectively communicated to consumers [29],…”