COMPUTER-GENERATED CARS YOU HAVE TO LOVE: HOW IMAGE MORPHING AND WARPING HELP DESIGNERS TO OPTIMIZE THEIR DESIGN SKETCHES

Although product design is considered as a core determinant of a product\u27s market success, systematic approaches that allow managers to increase a product\u27s visual attractiveness are not available. The present research addresses this gap by adapting an approach that was originally developed in research on human facial attractiveness to a product design context. In particular, we propose that image morphing and warping techniques can be used to identify and manipulate those design features that drive a product\u27s perceived attractiveness. Moreover, we also develop a computer-assisted interface that allows consumers to individually determine their optimal car design. Three studies with real consumers focusing on the automotive market confirm the viability and the usefulness of our approach. From a managerial perspective, the approach may increase the effectiveness of design efforts and may help in integrating consumers\u27 preferences in an early stage of the product design process

Auf den Rangplatz kommt es an - Wirkung der Rangfolge von Produkten auf das Entscheidungsverhalten

Zusammenfassung: Häufig präsentieren Anbieter ihren Nachfragern die zur Auswahl stehenden Produkte in Listen. Beispiele hierfür bilden Online-Shops (z.B. für Nahrungsmittel, Elektroartikel oder Kleider), die ihre Erzeugnisse zumeist unter Berücksichtigung der vom Kunden gewünschten Auswahlkriterien in einer Rangfolge darbieten. Auch Auktionsportale, Suchmaschinen sowie Wohnungs-, Partner- oder Pkw-Börsen zeigen die für den Kunden als relevant erachteten Erzeugnisse bzw. Treffer in einer Liste. Aus theoretischen Ansätzen, die vor allem aus der deskriptiven Entscheidungstheorie stammen, lässt sich die Vermutung ableiten, dass der Rangplatz eines Produkts in einer Liste einen Effekt auf die Präferenz des Kunden für dieses Gut ausübt. Im Rahmen einer empirischen Studie im Markt für gebrauchte Fahrzeuge kann dieser Zusammenhang bestätigt werden. Bestimmte Rangplätze sind unabhängig von der Beschaffenheit der an diesen Stellen präsentierten Erzeugnisse bei den Individuen beliebter als andere. Für Hersteller und Händler (etwa Online-Shops) liefert die Studie Hinweise über den Zusammenhang zwischen der Art und Weise der Gestaltung von Listen (z.B. geordnet nach einem Kriterium oder randomisiert) und der Neigung von Individuen, sich für das erste, das mittlere etc. Produkt zu entscheiden. Wissenschaftler erlangen ein tieferes Verständnis über individuelles Verhalten bei der Wahl eines Produkts aus einer Liste und der dieses Verhalten determinierenden Faktore

The Pervasive Effect of Aesthetics on Choice: Evidence From a Field Study

Do people think logically and carefully before buying an expensive item, or are more superficial forces such as product appearance at work? To investigate this question, six months of car sales were predicted using objective measures of a design's typicality and complexity. The data revealed that cars conforming closely to a morph of designs of all cars outsell cars conforming less closely to the morph, but only when the design is visually complex. These design factors explain 42% of the sales variance and are independent of retail price, brand associations, technological specifications, and advertising. Subjective measures controlling for brand recognition further confirm the considerable impact of design factors on real purchases involving large financial commitments

Enantioselective α-Hydroxylation of 2-Arylacetic Acid Derivatives and Buspirone Catalyzed by Engineered Cytochrome P450 BM-3

Here we report that an engineered microbial cytochrome P450 BM-3 (CYP102A subfamily) efficiently catalyzes the α-hydroxylation of phenylacetic acid esters. This P450 BM-3 variant also produces the authentic human metabolite of buspirone, R-6-hydroxybuspirone, with 99.5% ee

ZMYND10 Is Mutated in Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia and Interacts with LRRC6

Defects of motile cilia cause primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), characterized by recurrent respiratory infections and male infertility. Using whole-exome resequencing and high-throughput mutation analysis, we identified recessive biallelic mutations in ZMYND10 in 14 families and mutations in the recently identified LRRC6 in 13 families. We show that ZMYND10 and LRRC6 interact and that certain ZMYND10 and LRRC6 mutations abrogate the interaction between the LRRC6 CS domain and the ZMYND10 C-terminal domain. Additionally, ZMYND10 and LRRC6 colocalize with the centriole markers SAS6 and PCM1. Mutations in ZMYND10 result in the absence of the axonemal protein components DNAH5 and DNALI1 from respiratory cilia. Animal models support the association between ZMYND10 and human PCD, given that zmynd10 knockdown in zebrafish caused ciliary paralysis leading to cystic kidneys and otolith defects and that knockdown in Xenopus interfered with ciliogenesis. Our findings suggest that a cytoplasmic protein complex containing ZMYND10 and LRRC6 is necessary for motile ciliary function

Objective Measures of Design Typicality That Predict Aesthetic Liking, Fluency, and Car Sales

Assessing product design typicality is vital to forecast consumers' responses to designs. We introduce objective measures of design typicality and demonstrate their capability of capturing subjective typicality experiences in the context of car designs. Findings show that the proposed objective approaches provide convenient means to easily assess design typicality

Analysis of Variance

Experiments are becoming increasingly important in marketing research. Supposea company has to decide which of three potential new brand logos should beused in the future. An experiment in which three groups of participants rate theirliking of one of the logos would provide the necessary information to make thisdecision. The statistical challenge is to determine which (if any) of the three logosis liked significantly more than the others. The adequate statistical technique to assess the statistical significance of such mean differences between groups ofparticipants is called analysis of variance (ANOVA). The present chapter providesan introduction to the key statistical principles of ANOVA and comparesthis method to the closely related t-test, which can alternatively be used if exactlytwo means need to be compared. Moreover, it provides introductions to the keyvariants of ANOVA that have been developed for use when participants areexposed to more than one experimental condition (repeated-measuresANOVA), when more than one dependent variable is measured (multivariateANOVA), or when a continuous control variable is considered (analysis ofcovariance). This chapter is intended to provide an applied introduction toANOVA and its variants. Therefore, it is accompanied by an exemplary datasetand self-explanatory command scripts for the statistical software packages R andSPSS, which can be found in the Web-Appendix

Objective measures of design typicality

Design typicality shapes consumers’ aesthetic product preferences. Hence, methods for assessing a product design’s typicality are vital to enable predictions of a design’s market potential. In this research, we introduce four objective measures of design typicality (two based on Euclidean distances between feature points and two based on pixel-wise image correlations) and demonstrate their capability of capturing a subjective typicality experience. Furthermore, we validate the measures in the context of automobile designs with consumer ratings of aesthetic liking and experienced processing fluency by analysing 77 car models from four segments. Our findings identify the most promising approach to quantify design typicality and endorse the use of this measure in future scientific research and in managing product design in business practice