Exploration of users’ cross-cultural differences by using the Kansei engineering approach

Abstract

Nowadays, product design for the global market has to meet the needs and demands of more than a single group of users. Besides the required functionality, the emotional value of the product also plays an important role in user satisfaction. One of the aspects that an interdisciplinary design team should consider while developing a new product is the users’ cross-cultural differences in emotional responses toward product elements. The objective of this study was to use the adjusted Kansei engineering methodology, named the Kansei cross-culture (KCUL) model, in order to discover the differences or similarities in emotional responses toward shapes and colors of diverse groups of participants. This study demonstrates this methodology on two groups of students, one from Central Europe and the other from South Asia (India). We presumed that the observed participants will have different associations toward certain shape and color samples, as well as that they will differ in the intensity of responses. The data were collected through Semantic differential questionnaires and the five-level Likert scale. The survey results were then analyzed using the Factor analysis, the Independent t-test, and the Linear mixed models.