The influence of the nature of need for touch, handcraft material and material color on the motivation for touch

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of user characteristic - the need for touch (NFT), handcraft materials and material colors on motivation of touch and preference. A total of 70 subjects were recruited in the study. In addition to the NFT level (high score group and low score group) was evaluated, handcraft materials (wood, glass, pottery, plastic and metal) and material colors (red and yellow) were studied in the experiment. The dependent variables including the willingness of touch, preference and 16 pairs of opposite adjectives for sense of sight were measured by questionnaire interview. The study results showed that the effect of NFT affect significantly willingness of touch (p<0.001), preference (p<0.01) and the sense of warm-cold (p<0.05). All measures were affected significantly by handcraft material effect (p<0.05). On the other hand, 11 pairs of opposite adjectives are affected significantly by material color factor. The results of regression equations showed that the willingness of touch was mainly affected by subjective preference. Moreover, the subjective preference was mainly affected by the rating of beauty for product. Therefore, the subjective preference increased for a product was followed the rating of beauty and then the willing of touch was increased. The findings of this study can give an insight into the motivation of touch, and further provide some guidelines and recommendations about the product design and selling method to increase the competitive advantage of product. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.