Understanding and Supporting Designers to Improve the Engineering Aesthetics of Products

Abstract

In today’s extremely competitive market, a key concern in product design is creating new items that satisfy consumer wants and preferences. During the development phase of any product, many aspects or features of products play an active role, such as their “Functionality,” “Cost, i.e., economically viable product,” “Ergonomics (comfort level),” and “Product Aesthetics.” The visual form of any product is a significant contributing factor to customers’ reactions and product’s success. Products' social significance, elegance, and functionality are frequently assessed entirely based on the aesthetic cues. These evaluations are made in relation to the qualities of products and typically focus on meeting the consumer wants and wishes rather than their necessities. Further, among these three pillars, one of the most important consumer considerations when making purchases continues to be "Product Aesthetics." Several businesses have worked hard in recent years to enhance the appearance of their products to get a competitive edge in this competitive market. This is particularly true of modern consumer goods (e.g., personal computers, digital cameras, smartphones, etc.). Various research suggests that product design and aesthetics play a vital role in the success of any company in the current scenario. Aesthetics impact not only the visual senses of human beings while purchasing or interacting with any product or service, but also, the human cognitive level. Therefore, there is a critical to understand aesthetics in depth. This research mainly aims to develop support that can help industrial designers improve a product's engineering aesthetics. Before developing the support, it is essential to determine the critical factors related to engineering aesthetics. Further, we create different frameworks and use different techniques and methods for understanding and developing support for industrial designers. In this research, the thesis the first objective is to understand aesthetics and develop a simple definition of aesthetics in philosophical terms. In this work, we first develop a standard philosophical definition of aesthetics from the different sets of authors, blogs, etc. After using these definitions, we identified the core constituents of aesthetics related to aesthetics in engineering terms. That can help identify, understand, and quantify the engineering aesthetics definition. Using this description, we define engineering aesthetics metrics that evaluate human aesthetics, factors influencing aesthetics, and techniques for improving aesthetics. This study demonstrates that a corporation can choose a particular set of tests and techniques based on how much attention is paid to the critical engineering aesthetics characteristics derived from the common definition. The reason for studying this work is; industrial designers are directly involved in the different stages of product development, from the initial to the final phase. Therefore, there is a need to understand how their cognitive thinking differs from prospective consumers. Thus, after determining the different factors, first, we develop a standard definition in terms of ‘engineering aesthetics.’ After finding the engineering aesthetics definition and constituents of engineering aesthetics, we divided this work into two sections; first, we tried to identify various factors that influence the aesthetics of engineered products. The second section tries to understand cognitive factors influencing product aesthetics. In the second objective, we conducted two different case studies. In the first case study, we investigated the visual factors that affect the decision-making of current and prospective buyers and automobile designers' cognitive thinking while purchasing and designing a new product. For that, we developed a method to deem the gaps among the ranks of visual factors assigned by the designers during design and those of the consumers while buying a new car, respectively. This study uses a two-phase methodology; in the first phase, we use two methods, the first rank value method and the second is Pareto Principle. On the other hand, in the second phase, we use the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP). In the second case study, we investigated non-visual factors. In the case of a car, visual factors such as the curve line, grill design, and color predominately influence the perspective of the consumer’s behaviours. However, other factors, such as reliability, quality, and ergonomics, substantially influence the consumer's purchasing mindset. We investigated the non-visual factors related to the purchase of cars affecting consumers’ cognitive perception. The studies are experimentally conducted with industrial experts and prospective participants. Further, the studies are conducted in 2-phases, and an approach is developed for understanding the gaps between the ranks. These ranks are assigned to the non-visual factors given by the consumers and designers, which further relates to their perception gaps. The analysis is performed with the rank value method, Pareto principle, and Fuzzy-AHP. This study is extended to finding their sub-factors. This study aimed to identify the significant non-visual factors of cars that affect the cognitive perception of buyers and estimate their importance relative to each other. A set of non-visual factors and their sub-factors were identified through a literature search and an open-ended survey among car owners. Many of the sub-factors had the same meaning; therefore, these factors were grouped under twenty separate sub-factors. Then, these twenty sub-factors were analyzed by using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach to evaluate the most influential sub-factors among the identified sub-factors. In the third objective, we conducted two different studies to understand and quantify the constituents’ factors of engineering aesthetics at a cognitive level. In the first study, we understand and quantify the attractiveness feature of aesthetics. As we know, attractiveness is totally dependent on time. It is produced by functionality and can vary according to the human being. Further, the product's aesthetic qualities/features always act as a bridge between the buyer and the products at the time of purchase. And these qualities/features generate various kinds of emotions in a human being. Thus, measuring every aesthetic feature is very essential for understanding and quantifying product aesthetics. In this study, we quantify the effect of the appropriateness feature of product aesthetics on human visual and cognitive thinking in this study. In the second study, we understand and quantify the beauty feature of aesthetics and their constituents qualitatively and quantitatively. During this study, we use the different design elements, images made with the help of various design elements, different color schemes, and Cameras as a product for the assessment of the beauty of any product in cognitive and mathematical terms. For the quantification of the beauty of the product, Minitab, an eye tracking technique, Likert scale, and statistical tool are used. Ultimately, we use an artificial neural network tool to support product designers' understanding and quantify the product's beauty with the help of eye-tracking techniques. In the last objective, we abstract the output of each factor and their constituents and apply it using software in engineering aesthetics enhancement of the product. We made a GUI for the assessment of the tool. Overall, this research work has significantly impacted the development of the new product by considering engineering aesthetics, method, and tool support for the quantification and enhancement of product aesthetics.