Application of aesthetic principles to the study of consumer preference models for vase forms

Abstract

The factors that affect a consumer when making a purchase decision include product function, quality, and price. Different products might feature similar functional performance although they are designed and manufactured by different vendors. The most decisive factor for a consumer in buying a product is no longer its physical functions. Nowadays, consumers care more about the aesthetics that a product can deliver. Designers should make any extra effort to improve the aesthetic design of their products. Therefore, it is critical for a designer to know the aesthetic tastes of his/her target consumer group in order to create products with the preferred style. Furthermore, the idea of design differentiation needs to be incorporated so that a product can present different aesthetic perceptions to consumers of different tastes. The objective of this study is to investigate consumers' preference models from their preferred product forms. The aesthetic principles of Symmetry, Minimalism, and Cohesion are applied to the case study of the design of various vase forms. A quantitative approach of evaluating vase forms by the aesthetic principles is proposed. A conjoint analysis of the vase features and attributes was carried out in order to determine their correlation with consumer preferences. Consumers are classified into 6 groups of different aesthetic conceptions by cluster analysis. The consumers' preference model can be determined by indices including Pearson's R and Kendall's tau. This approach provides designers with an effective way of determining the right direction for new form designs and renovation.