The Influence of Textured Surfaces of Cosmetic Packaging on Consumers' Feelings

Abstract

This study investigated what consumers' feelings were evoked when they touched different textured surfaces of 20 compact powder cases. Without seeing them, fifty respondents with and without an art-and-design-based background were asked to describe their feelings in their words as they touched the cases as well as explain them by provided words. The results show that different surface textures did evoke different respondents' feelings of which those familiar with the design were able to express a wider range. All participants were able to describe both the initial sense of physicality and complex feelings toward every textured surface investigated.

The Design Factors of Cosmetic Packaging Textures for Conveying Feelings

“…The sample group were students at the Faculties of Science and Architecture in King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang who were the target group of cosmetic products and whose ages were between 18 to 34 years old. The reason for choosing a group from the Faculty of Science and a group from the Faculty of Architecture was that the former group had no art-and-design-based background while the latter had it which influenced the feeling words that they uttered in a pilot study (Ritnamkam & Chavalkul, 2016). The latter group was able to respond to textures with more diverse feeling words.…”

“…Therefore, it has been shown that touch sensation can affect the feeling of consumers towards a product. However, this sense has not been investigated in isolation to other senses with respect to package design until the author has done a pilot study that demonstrated that touch sensation of diverse texture designs of a cosmetic package was able to convey diverse feelings (Ritnamkam & Chavalkul, 2016). For example, she found that textures with protruded patterns were able to convey the feelings of gentleness, cheerfulness, child-likeness, cuteness, and adolescent-likeness.…”