Examining the "Later Wow" through Operating a Metaphorical Product

IntroductionMany product designers nowadays try to create products with appearances that can both attract consumers' attention and arouse their emotion. Because the first impression usually comes from appearance, such as with most of Philippe Starck's works, the approach of provoking a "first wow," a term coined by well-known Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa (Goto, Sasaki, & Fukasawa, 2004), has become many designers' goal. However, some designs do not stop at the "first wow" level. If we carefully examine Rexite's tape dispenser, designed by Julian Brown, and Alessi's Anna G corkscrew, designed by Alessandro Mendini, we are not only initially amazed by their fascinating and interpretive form, but also captivated by certain characteristics that emerge through operation. In recent decades, Naoto Fukasawa has tried to embody the sophisticated relations among product, user, and environment through his elegant and refined designs. His design strategy seems to dim the first impression of the product's appearance while enlarging the later effect after operation through visual clues. He has advocated several influential concepts of product design through exhibitions and publications, such as "without thought," "activity memory," "found object," and "later wow" (Goto, Sasaki, & Fukasawa, 2004). Among them, "later wow," the concept directly involved in emotional responses, refers to the late recognition and appreciation of a novelty that arises when a product is being used or after it has been used (Fukasawa, 2002; Goto, Sasaki, & Fukasawa, 2004; Szita, 2006). This new term in design practice has inspired us to take a more careful research approach to further understand and clarify its links to his other concepts.Fukasawa (2002) has used his CD player design (see Figure 1) as an example to illustrate his concept of the later wow:In contrast with the "First Wow," which is the immediate surprise you get upon seeing something, "Later Wow" is the kind of surprise that sneaks up on you. I think that a feeling that gradually spreads out has greater value and brings greater joy than something that just makes you say "Wow!" in the beginning but then goes nowhere fast.... That part of CD is the visual "First Wow." The "Later Wow" happens when the user puts in a CD and pulls the cord, thereby producing a sound like a rotating ventilation fan (p. 57).[Figure omitted, see PDF]Figure 1. MUJI CD player.(Designed by Naoto Fukasawa. Copyright: Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. Reprinted with permission.)By "matching things with different actions" (Fukasawa, 2007, p. 42), the later wow can occur at the moment the user understands the designer's ideas behind the product by means of the object's various characteristic actions (Fukasawa, 2007, p. 42; Goto, Sasaki, & Fukasawa, 2004). This kind of later wow design may be seen as an interpretive design of operation, somewhat related to "reflective design" as termed by Norman (1988), especially with regard to the meaning of the operation. We wish to know exactly when and how this second or later impression is aroused during the process of operating a metaphorical product. Will the interaction process be divided into sequential steps for detecting the crucial factor? Will users' responses be similar to one another if the results of the operations are beyond their expectations? Does the first wow, concerned with the product's form, have to be reduced to produce a stronger later wow? After a related theoretical survey, preliminary analysis, material gathering, and a simple quantitative pilot study, in this study we conducted in-depth interviews to investigate users' responses during actual product operation, especially in relation to unexpected pleasant surprise.Theoretical Framework and HypothesisWhen metaphorical designs are mentioned, we inevitably recall the issue of product semantics in the 1980s. Product semantics as an interpretive approach offers designers unprecedented freedom of expression. …