This master thesis is about exploring the possibility to concisely and deliberately apply a feeling on a product medium. The report features the process and results of using the kansei engineering methodology to develop and evaluate a friendly vibrator (pleasure product). The thesis is performed at a master level in the program of Industrial Design at Jönköping University.

This research uses two approaches, Kansei Engineering Modeling and Usability, to discuss how different web design elements of on-line radio influence the feelings and the usage of the web. This research also uses multidimensional method to demonstrate the relative relationship of the virtual websites built for this research, in order to understand the feelings and usage of the web sites in the unit of the whole website. In the discussion of Kansei Engineering, ¡§clear¡¨, ¡§neat¡¨ and ¡§friendly¡¨ feelings were found in the websites with menu in the top and the left side of the webpage. As for listen-on-line icon, it is better that the icon stands outside the menu. In the perceptual map, which discusses the websites in whole, indicates the obviousness of the listen-on-line icon separate the 8 websites into two, meaning it¡¦s a good discriminant of online radio websites. In the discussion of usability, ¡§activity and concert information¡¨ and ¡§the name of the song and the artist playing¡¨ are positive to the increment of learnability, efficiency, design quality, listening contentment, content variety and satisfaction as a whole. Independent listening window is positive to the increment of learnability and efficiency. The perceptual map of the 8 websites of the usability study, ¡§activity and concert information¡¨ and ¡§the name of the song and the artist playing¡¨ are the most important discriminant, which can be used to increase the usability of on-line radio websites. The findings of the research are only true under the circumstances that the assumption of linearity is being proved. Following research can try other statistical method in order to get results that are more accurate.

Designingenjörsstudenten Matilda Kälström har på Tibroköks uppdrag utvecklat ett sortiment för walk-in-closets där målgruppen för projektet är företagets befintliga kundkrets. Under projektets gång har en grundläggande förstudie gjorts för att bland annat ta reda på projektets förutsättningar, kartlägga konkurrenter och ta reda på vad kunder har för krav och önskemål. Exempel på krav och önskemål från kundernas sida var att produkten skall ge en överblick över innehållet och samla all klädvård på ett gemensamt ställe.  En litteraturstudie gjordes där det lästes om förvaring, människans relation till hemmet och om arkitektur. Information som framkom var bland annat att det är väldigt viktigt för människan att kunna utforma sitt hem efter egna behov och en bra riktlinje att strukturera förvaring på är efter var på kroppen kläderna används. En central del i projektet är Kansei Engineering, vilket är ett koncept för att koppla människor uppfattningar till produkters utformning. Det har använts i enkäter för att ta reda på vad kunder vill uppleva, det har använts till idégenerering och för att sedan ta reda på om resultatet gav de uppfattningar som eftersträvades. I enkäterna framkom det att det bland annat är önskvärt att en walk-in-closet är lyxig, klassisk, stilren och bekväm. Dessa ords betydelser togs fram från Nationalencyklopedin och användes för att göra mood boards som sedan användes till idégenerering. Idégenereringen skedde i tre olika idéstadier som byggde både på olika metoder och på varandra. Efter varje idéstadie utvärderades koncepten och resultaten följde med till nästa idéstadie. Metoder som användes var bland annat personas, scenarion, funktionsträd och morfologisk tabell. Utvärderingarna gjordes tillsammans med företaget och till hjälp användes metoden PNI och en viktningmatris. Resultatet blev ett sortiment bestående av tolv moduler som kunderna kan kombinera ihop till sina egna walk-in-closets. Fyra olika skåpsmoduler, två olika förvaringsöar, två sittplatser, ett sminkbord, en smyckesbyrå, en skohylla och en spegelhylla. För att till sist ta reda på om resultatet ger de uppfattningar och upplevelser som det strävats efter under projektets gång så gjordes en utvärdering med tolv personer, främst studenter på Högskolan i Skövde. Två olika montage av modulerna i form av en ”kvinnlig” och en ”manlig” walk-in-closets visades för deltagarna och de fick med egna ord beskriva vad de fick för intryck av bilderna och berätta vad de tyckte att dessa walk-in-closets har för egenskaper. Deltagarnas svar stärkte projektets resultat och bekräftade att det gav de uppfattningar och upplevelser som var önskvärda. / The Design Engineering student Matilda Kälström has developed a range of storage solutions for walk-in closets where the target group for the project is the company’s existing customer base. During the project a basic feasibility study was done to determine the project requirements, identify competitors and find out what demands and requests the customers have. Example of demand was that the product should provide an overview of the content of the walk-in-closet. A literature study was done to gather information about storage, man's relationship to its home and architecture. Identified information was that it's very important for the human to be able to design their home according to their needs and a good guideline to structure storage is to place the clothes according to where on the body they are used. A central part of the project is Kansei engineering, which is a concept of connecting peoples’ perceptions to products' design. It has been used in surveys to find out what the customers want to experience, it has been used for idea generation and it has been used to find out if the results gave desirable experiences. The survey results revealed that desirable experiences of a walk-in closet is luxurious, classic, stylish and comfortable. The meaning of these words were used from the National Encyclopedia to make mood boards which then were used to generate ideas. The development of ideas were made in three stages with different methods. After each stages the concepts were evaluated and the results were used in the next stage. The methods that were used was for example personas, scenarios, function trees and morphological table. The evaluations was performed with the company, the method PNI and a weighting matrix. The result is a collection of twelve modules that customers can combine in their own way of walk-in closets. Four different cabinet modules, two different “storage islands”, two seats, a dressing table, a chest of drawers for jewelries, a shoe rack and a mirror shelf. To finally find out if the result gives the perceptions and experiences that is desirable an evaluation was done with twelve people, mostly students at the University of Skövde. Two different mounting of the modules in the form of a "female" and "male" walk-in-closets were shown. With their own words they were about to describe what impressions they had of the pictures and tell what they thought of these walk-in-closets. The participants' response strengthened the project's results and confirmed that the impressions and experiences were desirable.

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 consumers aesthetic response to car body shape and color. Next, this study developed an effective tool that is capable in capturing and accommodating consumers 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.

<p>There is an increasing emphasis on developing systematical research approaches for design of products that appeal to people’s emotions and values. This thesis proposes methodological developments for investigating people’s subjective emotional needs and values towards quality and explores interactions of related physical design attributes for product design.</p><p>The overall aim of the licentiate thesis is to gain an understanding on Affective engineering of products through exploring the concept of quality feeling and to develop methodological approaches for this. Quality feeling can be described as a holistic concept considering individuals’ perceptions, expectations, experiences, physical and psychological expressions for a product or service. Affective Engineering methodology aims at translating human psychological processes, such as feelings and emotions, into appropriate product design attributes, such as size, shape, and surface characteristics.</p><p>The thesis presents three methodological approaches when evaluating products for affective engineering and one approach for an interactive product design support system development.</p><p>The first study presented deals with feelings of quality for reach truck operator’s cabin components. Components that would convey to give a higher total quality feeling were identified and improvement opportunities were prioritized. The second study presented is based on developing an interactive affective design and decision support system software for design of the steering wheel from drivers’ individual and shared preferences. In the third study affective values arising from judgments for important feelings of quality is the study basis. The author presents research on identifying interactions of design attributes for affective values in waiting areas of primary health care services.</p><p>Further, a new approach for applying Affective Engineering in design of complex contexts is proposed.The proposed approach aims to handle contexts where feelings and design attributes have complex interactions for products and services that give almost an infinite number of design alternatives that are difficult to handle in traditional Kansei Engineering studies. With this thesis also an interactive product design and decision support system software is developed for steering wheel design and proposed for educational and industrial use. The proposed system works based on linking product design attributes to human feelings by applying Genetic algorithms and provides potential basis for future product development and improvements.</p><p>This thesis has also contributed with affective design recommendations applicable for vehicle cabins and waiting areas in primary health care. Moreover, a number of existing methods in Affective Engineering have been tested and methodological experience is drawn, including advantages, disadvantages and limitations of using these methods.</p>

La conception de produits de marque nécessite de considérer en même temps les aspects qui concernent la perception du produit (lié à l'évaluation et les émotions des consommateurs et les valeurs de la marque), ainsi que les aspects techniques et d'ingénierie, comprenant les fonctionnalités, les performances, le coût du produit et sa fabricabilité. Dans un contexte pluridisciplinaire, les designers de produits et les ingénieurs doivent collaborer et communiquer entre eux pour obtenir un produit satisfaisant qui plaise émotionnellement aux consommateurs et qui réponde techniquement aux performances attendues et qui est faisable à fabriquer. Cependant, cette collaboration entre les designers et les ingénieurs est difficile à cause de leurs différentes connaissances, approches et responsabilités au cours du processus de conception. Cette recherche s’intéresse aux questions du comment soutenir la communication entre les designers et les ingénieurs de produits et comment soutenir l'intégration de point de vue l'ingénierie au plus tôt dans le processus de conception de produit de marque. Les résultats de cette recherche contribuent à la proposition d'une approche pour intégrer le point de vue de l'ingénierie au point de vue de design (émotions et esthétique). Une proposition et évaluation de trois approches pour soutenir la communication entre les designers et les ingénieurs est étudiée dans cette recherche. De même une approche d'intégration est proposée suivant des trois étapes de modélisation, transformation et intégration des connaissances d'ingénierie à la connaissance de design. Par notre travail, nous avons contribué au projet SKIPPI, dans le développement d'un logiciel d'aide à la génération d'idées et à la prise de décision dans les phases amont de la conception. / Design of branded products involves consideration of both perceptual aspects of the product appearance (related to consumers’ evaluation and emotions and the brand values) as well as the technical and engineering aspects including manufacturing feasibility, performances, and cost. Within a multidisciplinary design context, product designers and engineering designers need to collaborate and communicate together to achieve a satisfactory product that is emotionally appealing to the consumers and is technically performing the intended functions, and is feasible to manufacture. However, such collaboration between product designers and engineering designers is difficult due to their different knowledge background, work approaches and responsibilities during the design process. This research deals with the questions of how to support the communication between product designers and engineering designers and how to support the integration of the engineering viewpoint earlier in the design process of branded product. Proposition and evaluation of three potential approaches to support communication between product designers and engineering designers is investigated in this research. Likewise an integration approach is proposed following the three steps of modeling, transforming and integrating the engineering knowledge to design knowledge. The results of this research contribute to the SKIPPI project, in the development of a software to support idea generation and the decision-making in the upstream design phase.

Ce travail de recherche a pour objectif général de proposer un modèle de mise en relation du design émotionnel avec la macrotexture et les matériaux pour aider les concepteurs à la sélection de finitions pour les produits industriels. Cette modélisation vise à valoriser le produit à travers l’exploration des mécanismes sensoriels, sémantiques et émotionnels, qui interviennent lors de la perception du produit par le consommateur. Le processus perceptif est ainsi pris en compte à travers différents modalités sensorielles de manière à enrichir le processus de conception. Le secteur d’application de notre recherche a été le secteur automobile, avec le produit « volant ». Ce produit a été analysé dans la catégorie Grand Public. Dans cette catégorie, les matériaux ont été analysés sur un ensemble de 7 différents modèles de volants avec une population française et brésilienne. Par ailleurs, différents paramètres techniques tels que, la dureté, la rugosité et la dissipation thermique, ont été pris en compte dans la mise en relation pour renforcer la communication entre les domaines du Design et l’Ingénierie. / This research has the overall goal to propose a model linking emotional design with macrotexture and materials to help designers in the selection of finishes for industrial products. This model aims to promote the product through the exploration of sensory, semantic and emotional mechanisms, involved in the perception of the product by the consumer. The perceptive process is thus considered through different sensory modalities to enrich the design process. The application sector of our research was the automotive sector, with the product "steering wheel". This product was analyzed in the General Public category. In this category, the materials were analyzed within a set of 7 different steering wheels models by a population of French and Brazilian users. Moreover, different technical parameters such as, hardness, roughness and heat dissipation have been taken into account in the linking to strengthen communication between the fields of Design and Engineering.

Designingenjörsstudenterna Kajsa Phalén och Emelie Lövgren Berg på Högskolan i Skövde har under våren 2016 arbetat med ett produktutvecklingsprojekt i samverkan med leksaksföretaget Strawbees. Företaget vill börja sälja sina kreativa leksaker i butik och vill därför utveckla ett säljande displayställ som ska bära produkterna. En grundläggande förstudie har gjorts för att definiera en målgrupp som består av kunder och andra intressenter. Förstudien täcker också marknadsförings-strategier i butik och undersökningar som gjorts för att öka förståelsen för målgruppens behov. Marknadsanalyser över konkurrenter gav inspiration från redan befintliga lösningar på problemet och kollage över färgkoder och formspråk gav resultatet den känsla som företaget vill förmedla. Antalet produkter displaystället skulle bära hade stort fokus för starten av konceptgenereringen och kombinationer av hur produkterna kan placeras lade grunden för displayställets utformning. Genom analyser kring hur konkurrenter löst visuell design för displayställ skapades visuella teman. De framtagna utformningarna ihop med visuella teman och den känsla som företaget vill förmedla skapade sedan olika koncept. De vidareutvecklade koncepten analyserades efter hur de passade in i dess rätta miljö, en leksaksbutik. Utefter upptäckta brister kunde antalet koncept begränsas till enbart två stycken som senare blev prototyper. Dessa prototyper testades i verklig storlek ihop med de produkter som displaystället skulle rymma. Ett koncept kunde därefter bestämmas och vidareutvecklas i detaljform för att på bästa sätt nå upp till krav och önskemål. / During spring 2016, the engineering students Kajsa Phalén and Emelie Lövgren Berg, at the University of Skövde, developed a product in cooperation with the toy company Strawbees. The company wants to sell their creative toys in stores and therefore wants to develop a sales display stand that will carry the products. A basic feasibility study has been done to define a target group of customers and other stakeholders. The feasibility study also covers marketing strategies in shops and studies were carried out to increase understanding of the target group needs. Market analysis of competitors gave inspiration from existing solutions of the problem and a collage over color codes and idioms gave the result the feeling that the company wants to convey. The number of products that the display stand would wear was a major focus in the beginning of the concept generation. Combinations of how the products can be placed laid the foundation for the design of the display stand. Through analysis of how competitors solved the visual design for the display stand some visual themes were created. The developed designs together with visual themes and the feeling that the company wants to convey created various concepts. The new concepts were analyzed for how they would fit into its natural environment, a toy store. Because of some shortcomings the number of concept could be limited to only two, who later became prototypes. These prototypes were tested in real size together with the products that the display stand would accommodate. A concept could then be determined and developed in detail as to the best way to reach up to the demands and wishes of the company.

<p>New food product development is so often confronted with failure in the market. One of the significant reasons is, nowadays, the customer preference is no longer simply only determined by a few factors rather a combination of various needs. This article presents an affective engineering methodology “Kansei Engineering” which can tailor the product by the customer need. This methodology is able to assist the food product developer to connect the consumer affection with the product properties in order to develop the food product with the most affective influence deep in customer’s mind associated with product. Using this systematic affective methodology “Kansei engineering” approach would help the company to develop the food with consumer amenity.</p>

Feelings and impressions of a product are important for the decision of purchasing it or not. Designing attractive products therefore requires knowledge about the feelings and impressions the products evoke on the customer and the user. Integrating such affective values in product design requires the introduction of suitable methods into companies’ product design processes, methods which can capture and convert subjective and even unconscious feelings about a product into concrete design parameters. This is sometimes referred to as ‘Affective Engineering’. One methodology in this context is Kansei Engineering, which has been developed in Japan in order to design feelings into products. The aim of this thesis was twofold: Firstly, to improve understanding of the nature of products making emotional impact on the users and customers. Secondly, to identify and improve methods capable of grasping those affective values and translating them into concrete product design solutions. This thesis presents three empirical studies and two methodological papers, relating to warehouse trucks and laminate flooring. The first study was made on user impact of warehouse trucks in three different European countries. A second study dealt with affective values of rocker-switches in work vehicles, such as warehouse trucks. A third study on this truck type compared the old manoeuvring panel evaluated in the previous studies with a newly introduced manoeuvring panel in order to validate the impact of the design improvements made after the first study. Further, a conceptual model on Kansei Engineering methodology was proposed in a methods paper based on the experience from the studies performed in order to provide a structure for performing Kansei Engineering studies. The fifth paper had the purpose of validating and improving the proposed model using laminate flooring as research object. More structured ways of identifying design parameters and relevant product properties was given high priority in the improvement work of the methodology. A model for spanning the Space of Product Properties was presented and applied. This thesis also deals with other improvement areas in the methodology and proposed new developments, including the use of scales, experimental design and validation methods. In conclusion, Kansei Engineering is a concept and a methodology in strong development, a framework in which tools and methods are continuously developed, added and integrated.