Extending Rule Developing Experimentation to Perception of Food Packages with Eye Tracking

Abstract

The paper presents an approach to analyzing food packages based on the eye-tracking analysis of consumers exposed to experimentally designed prototypes of packages based on Rule Developing Experimentation methodology. In addition, the paper analyses emotional reactions to conceptual packages (the respondent had a choice among seven alternatives, including one 'non-emotion' response). The combined approach allows the researcher and the designer to control the stimuli, presenting known combinations to the respondent leading to the discovery of existing links between what the researcher can do to the stimulus by means of a systematic design, how the eye tracks these changes, and what type of response the participant in a study might make (e.g., interest, statement of emotion). The paper explores this new interlinked approach working with a popular product, wine in a box.