How Do Semantic Clues Affect People's Perceptions of Products with Multiple Meanings

Abstract

A psychological experiment was conducted to explore the relationship between design features of physical controllers and perceived multiple meanings or possible operations by users. In particular, we focused on affordances and informatives, two semantic clues derived from product semantics, to find out how these clues affect users' perceptions. The results indicated that both desired shapes, text, and icon could encourage and discourage the perception of specific operations. Those empirical data could be useful for product designers in communicating effectively with users through their products.