Understanding and modeling of aesthetic response to shape and color in car body design

This study explored the phenomenon that a consumer's preference on color of car body may vary depending on shape of the car body. First, the study attempted to establish a theoretical framework that can account for this phenomenon. This framework is based on the (modern-) Darwinism approach to the so-called evolutionary psychology and aesthetics. It assumes that human's aesthetic sense works like an agent that seeks for environmental patterns that potentially afford to benefit the underlying needs of the agent, and this seeking process is evolutionary fitting. Second, by adopting the framework, a pattern called “fundamental aesthetic dimensions” was developed for identifying and modeling consumer’s aesthetic response to car body shape and color. Next, this study developed an effective tool that is capable in capturing and accommodating consumer’s color preference on a given car body shape. This tool was implemented by incorporating classic color theories and advanced digital technologies; it was named “Color-Shape Synthesizer”. Finally, an experiment was conducted to verify some of the theoretical developments. This study concluded (1) the fundamental aesthetics dimensions can be used for describing aesthetics in terms of shape and color; (2) the Color-Shape Synthesizer tool can be well applied in practicing car body designs; and (3) mapping between semantic representations of aesthetic response to the fundamental aesthetics dimensions can likely be a multiple-network structure

Influencing Generation Z\u27s Kansei Demand for New Tea Purchase Decision and Satisfaction—Research Based on Kansei Engineering

New tea has entered a prosperous period in China. In this promising market, its main consumer group is Generation Z, which has attracted extensive attention in recent years. Generation Z has distinctive ideas and behavior characteristics in brand recognition, social media, and platform utilization, and their subjective feelings about products directly affect their consumption behavior. In this paper, based on the theory of Kansei Engineering and from both linear and nonlinear levels, this paper uses multiple linear regression and KANO model to study the Kansei demand that affects generation Z\u27s purchasing decisions and satisfaction in the new tea market and gives some suggestions to the current market based on the research results

A guided search genetic algorithm using mined rules for optimal affective product design

Affective design is an important aspect of new product development, especially for consumer products, to achieve a competitive edge in the marketplace. It can help companies to develop new products that can better satisfy the emotional needs of customers. However, product designers usually encounter difficulties in determining the optimal settings of the design attributes for affective design. In this article, a novel guided search genetic algorithm (GA) approach is proposed to determine the optimal design attribute settings for affective design. The optimization model formulated based on the proposed approach applied constraints and guided search operators, which were formulated based on mined rules, to guide the GA search and to achieve desirable solutions. A case study on the affective design of mobile phones was conducted to illustrate the proposed approach and validate its effectiveness. Validation tests were conducted, and the results show that the guided search GA approach outperforms the GA approach without the guided search strategy in terms of GA convergence and computational time. In addition, the guided search optimization model is capable of improving GA to generate good solutions for affective design

Development of novel design methodology for product mass customization based on human attributes and cognitive behaviours

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The competition in the global market is accelerating rapidly because of less technological gap, matured manufacturing level, and various changing customer needs. Increasingly customers choose products in terms of experience desires, psychological desires and whether the products can reflect their values, in addition to the main product functions. Moreover, there are a large number of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in the developing countries. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and simple mass production cannot generate good value for these manufacture companies, and they have been seeking new opportunities to create higher value for their products/services and satisfy different needs of customers. Mass customization is one of the main business forms in the future, which can best meet the needs of individual customer, especially psychological needs. The key to mass customization is to provide enough modules to meet individual needs with a limited cost increase. The problem has been how to identify the real user needs and individual differences. The purpose of this research is to develop a sound design methodology based upon the current product design theories and practices for future product innovation and sustainable growth of small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises. The research focuses on the user-product cognitive behaviours and the relationship between human attributes and product features. Orthogonal experiment, eye tracking technology and artificial neural network have been successfully applied in this research. The research has developed a user needs hierarchy model and added value hierarchy model, and a robust theoretical basis to predict and evaluate (individual) user needs for product design. The research has further made the following contributions: 1) The relationship between human attributes and product features has been established, which can help designers understand the differences of various customer groups; 2) The different effects of various influence factors on people’s cognition and preference choice based on vision have been analysed and discussed; 3) A new method to identify, cluster, and combine common needs and personalized needs in early design stage for mass customization has been developed; 4) The research results can be reused in the future design of the same or similar kind of products

Development of biomechanical-based analysis tools for the evaluation of infringements and performance in race-walking

The study aims at developing an innovative biomechanical based methodology for the performance and infringements assessment in race-walking using a wearable inertial system