Relationship Between Product Aesthetic Subject Preference and Quantified Gestalt Principles in Automobile Wheel Rims

Abstract

Birkhoff proposed that order divided by complexity is a formula for esthetic measurement. In that context, this work proposes to measure order with a method to quantify Gestalt principles in 2D product representations. These principles establish how humans visually group elements of a shape together, and they have been used in architecture, product design and art as guidelines for a good design. A human subject study was conducted to test the hypothesis that if complexity is held constant across different versions of the same basic concept, Gestalt can serve as a direct measurement of the relative esthetics of those candidate designs. In a survey, subjects were asked to evaluate their preferences for multiple individual 2D representations of automotive wheel rims from a variety of styles. The wheel rims within each style were designed in pairs, one pair with lower and one pair with higher Gestalt. Complexity was held constant by only comparing subject ratings within wheel rim styles. The results show that a positive change in Gestalt has a positive effect on aesthetic subject preference and that preferences are not significantly different for designs differing in geometry but having the same Gestalt. The implications of these results for designers and for future work are discussed.

An immersive virtual discrete choice experiment for elicitation of product aesthetics using Gestalt principles

“…Designers can use the methodology presented in this paper to perform their own DCE study for the specific product that they are designing. With the modeling of aesthetics based on Gestalt principles presented in Lugo et al's (2016) work, designers will be able to model aesthetics based on symmetry, parallelism, and continuity principles. As described in the previous investigation, the modeling of aesthetics can be based on Gestalt principles via the aesthetic equation M = O/C, in which M is aesthetics, O is order, and C is complexity.…”

“…Nevertheless, when subjects have to choose between products with similar functionality and price, as in modern-day competitive markets, aesthetics become the key factor to consider (Creusen & Schoormans 2005;Kelly et al 2011). In previous research, the use of two-dimensional (2D) projections has proved to be instrumental in the study of product aesthetics (MacDonald et al 2008;Orsborn et al 2009;Kelly et al 2011;Lugo et al 2012Lugo et al , 2015Lugo et al , 2016Valencia-Romero & Lugo 2016a). However, depth and vergence cues characteristic of three-dimensional (3D) representations are necessary for a better understanding of subjects' perception (Pizlo 2010;Higgins 2012).…”

“…Considered as aesthetic guidelines by design scientists, the Gestalt principles explain how people group distinct elements of a visual representation into greater entities and how they interpret the whole picture differently from the sum of its parts (Wertheimer 1923;Köhler 2015). Lugo et al (2012Lugo et al ( , 2015Lugo et al ( , 2016 proposed 2D quantifications of the Gestalt principles of proximity, continuity, closure, symmetry, parallelism, and similarity in terms of design variables like lengths and ratios, and used these expressions to evaluate product aesthetics. Subsequently, Valencia-Romero & Lugo (2016a) assessed the part-worth utilities of symmetry, parallelism, and continuity over aesthetic preferences using discrete choice experimentation (DCE), endorsing previous remarks by Jacobs (2000) regarding the significance of these Gestalt principles for visual perception of continuous shapes.…”

“…A brief review concerning recent work on Gestalt principles and VR technologies in product aesthetics is presented next. The reader should refer to Biocca & Levy (1995), Wagemans et al (2012a,b), Jerald (2016), and Lugo et al (2016) for further information.…”

Application of Aesthetic Principles to the Study of Consumer Preference Models for Vase Forms

“…Kelly et al [21] proposed an approach of incorporating user shape preference in engineering design optimization. Lugo et al [22,23] proposed an approach of modeling product form preference by Gestalt principles, semantic space, and Kansei engineering approaches. They also determined the relationship between subjects' aesthetic preference for automobile wheel rims and quantified Gestalt principles.…”