The impact of concept (re)presentation on users' evaluation and perception

Early product concept evaluation, which is based on descriptions or conceptual sketches instead of functional prototypes or design models, has many practical advantages. However, a question at hand is whether the format of representation impacts the results of empirical "user studies". A study with two different design concepts and 326 participants revealed that global product evaluation (i.e., goodness) and high-level product perceptions (i.e., pragmatic quality, hedonic quality) are not influenced by differences in the concept (re)presentation (text, pictures, video, functional prototype). Only the assessment of interaction characteristics, such as its speed, was affected.