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Jan P.L. Schoormans earned his PhD from Tilburg University and is Professor of Consumer Research at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He has published on the role of consumer behavior in new product development in several academic journals like Design Studies, Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Journal of Research in Marketing, the Design Journal, Journal of Engineering Design, Design Management Review and CoDesign.
Introduction
Companies that are able to communicate a certain meaning (e.g. prestige) through the appearance of a product design can create a competitive advantage in the market and increase the product's chance of success (Lewalski, 1988; Bloch, 1995; Hertenstein, Platt, & Veryzer, 2005; Yamamoto & Lambert, 1994; Chang & Wu, 2007). According to Krippendorf (1989), the products of design should be understandable or meaningful to someone. The meaning the appearance of a product communicates helps consumers to assess the product on functional, aesthetic, symbolic or ergonomic motives. These motives play a role in the overall product appraisal. For example, when a product looks modern, it has a positive effect on product appraisal when consumers are motivated to assess a product on its aesthetics (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005). In practice, designers often face the difficulty of how to incorporate an intended meaning in a product design. When the product meaning that is communicated is not clear to the consumer, he or she will have difficulty assessing the product and will appreciate the product less. Therefore, it is valuable to provide designers with guidelines that can be used during briefings at the beginning of the design process or in product evaluation studies at a later stage of this process.
The whole process in which a meaning is derived from a product appearance can be summarized in two steps (Figure 1). First, when consumers see a product appearance, consumers perceive certain physical properties that together make up the design of the product (e.g., color, shape, and texture). For example, refrigerators are rectangular and have a smooth, shiny white surface. Second, certain combinations of colors, materials and other physical aspects give a product a look that can be described by a certain appearance attribute (Brunswick, 1952). For example, a DVD-player that is angular, metallic-looking and is made of a smooth material is perceived...