Investigating the haptic aspects of verbalised product experiences

The human senses play an important role in people's understanding and experience of products. The overall aim of this explorative study was to further investigate users' haptic product experiences in respect of how they are verbalised and how they relate to visual product experiences. The pilot studies revealed an important result, showing the participants' difficulty in verbalising product experiences. A mediating tool was therefore introduced to trigger the information. The main results of the study are that haptic product experiences appeared to contribute to all experience dimensions, but especially those concerning the dimensions "interface qualities" and "objective/ measurable". The results indicate that the information received from one sense created expectations for experiences through other senses and the information perceived through the second sense was used to confirm or modify anticipated experiences. The less prior knowledge participants had of the particular product, the more important the additional information delivered through the second sense appeared to be. Finally, haptic product experiences appeared to be related to a few haptic product properties, but more systematic studies need to be carried out to confirm these results and to identify the effect of the product properties on the intensity of different haptic product experiences.

[1]  Li A B E Wikström,et al.  Produktens budskap: metoder för värdering av produkters semantiska funktioner ur ett användarperspektiv , 1996 .

[2]  MariAnne Karlsson,et al.  Designing for the tactile sense: investigating the relation between surface properties, perceptions and preferences , 2007 .

[3]  C. Davis.  Touch , 1997, The Lancet.

[4]  John Cohen.  The World of Touch , 1952, Nature.

[5]  Jessica Isaksson.  Towards mapping and applying haptics in user-product interaction and product development: An empirical and theoretical approach , 2005 .

[6]  René van Egmond,et al.  3 – THE EXPERIENCE OF PRODUCT SOUNDS , 2008 .

[7]  J. M. Kittross.  The measurement of meaning , 1959 .

[8]  Terry L. Childers,et al.  Individual Differences in Haptic Information Processing: The "Need for Touch" Scale , 2003 .

[9]  Armand V. Cardello,et al.  4 – TASTE, SMELL AND CHEMESTHESIS IN PRODUCT EXPERIENCE , 2008 .

[10]  R L Klatzky,et al.  Imagined haptic exploration in judgments of object properties. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[11]  David C. McClelland,et al.  How Do Self-Attributed and Implicit Motives Differ?. , 1989 .

[12]  Toni-Matti Karjalainen,et al.  Semantic Transformation in Design.Communicating Strategic Brand Identity through Product Design References , 2004 .

[13]  H. Schifferstein,et al.  Capturing product experiences: a split-modality approach. , 2005, Acta psychologica.

[14]  L. Burns,et al.  Sensory Interaction and Descriptions of Fabric Hand , 1995, Perceptual and motor skills.

[15]  M. Heller.  The Psychology of Touch , 1991 .

[16]  H. Schifferstein.  The perceived importance of sensory modalities in product usage: a study of self-reports. , 2006, Acta psychologica.

[17]  J. Gibson.  Observations on active touch. , 1962, Psychological review.

[18]  S. Kosslyn.  Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate , 1994, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[19]  Geke D. S. Ludden,et al.  Sensory incongruity: comparing vision to touch, audition and olfaction , 2006 .

[20]  NicolasBouché,et al.  Importance of Touch in the Design of Pleasurable Products and Experiences , 2004 .

[21]  Mark Holliins,et al.  Perceptual dimensions of tactile surface texture: A multidimensional scaling analysis , 1993, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  D. Valentin,et al.  Perceptual dimensions of tactile textures. , 2003, Acta psychologica.

[23]  Anne Louise Bang.  FABRICS IN FUNCTION - EMOTIONAL UTILITY VALUES , 2009 .

[24]  Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein,et al.  Tools Facilitating Multi-sensory Product Design , 2008 .

[25]  M. Heller.  Visual and tactual texture perception: Intersensory cooperation , 1982, Perception & psychophysics.

[26]  Delphine Picard,et al.  Partial perceptual equivalence between vision and touch for texture information. , 2006, Acta psychologica.

[27]  Terry L. Childers,et al.  If I touch it I have to have it: Individual and environmental influences on impulse purchasing , 2006 .

[28]  Geke D.S. Ludden,et al.  Effects of visual-auditory incongruity on product expression and surprise , 2007 .

[29]  R. Klatzky,et al.  Haptic exploration in the presence of vision. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[30]  R. Klatzky,et al.  Hand movements: A window into haptic object recognition , 1987, Cognitive Psychology.