Mind the gap: a case study of cross cultural evaluation of product appearance

Abstract

Designers develop products aimed to be appreciated by consumers. Appearance plays a significant role in this process, yet it is rather uncommon to perform perception tests during the product development. This case study describes the cross cultural evaluation of a design proposal for Océ, an international supplier of printing systems. The goal of this paper is twofold: to evaluate the used methods and to reflect on measured cultural differences. The findings are:

A remote survey on its own is not a good tool to research perception. Better insights were obtained by means of a two step qualitative approach, including sensitization.

There were distinct cross-cultural differences in the perception and appreciation of product appearance. Little cultural difference was found concerning the preferred values in design for the product type, yet interestingly cross cultural differences were noticed concerning the products chosen to portray these values.

The research suggests that product appearance is appreciated best when designers and participants of the research share the same cultural background.

Supported by the results we suggest designers to mind the gap between their own cultural context and related assumptions compared to those of users in order to create successful products.

Keywords - Product Design, Brand Communication, Cultural Differences.

Relevance to Design Practice – When developing products for international markets, designers should be aware that their visual language might not be understood by users from different cultures. Therefore international perception studies should be applied to guarantee that the final design communicates designers` desires and this way support the brand.

Introduction

Industrial designers create and develop products that, in order to be successful, are aimed to be appreciated by consumers. Besides functionality and usability, also appearance plays a significant role in the appreciation, and thereby commercial success, and not just for the aesthetics. ‘Product appearance’ are all the characteristics that people can perceive by looking at a product; like shape, texture and color and is an efficient way of communicating information (Mooy, 1998). It can serve to explain a product, how to use it, but just as well to communicate brand values. For these reasons, aesthetic and first perception have always been a concern of designers. Especially those that design for mature markets, where the

functionality and performance of products are often taken for granted, and attention is increasingly focused on the visual characteristics of products (Crilly, Moultrie & Clarkson, 2004).

Often designers use appearance as a way of communication, just like a writer tries to convey ideas by means of words, syntax and grammar. Yet there is one important difference: most of us are taught how to read, being capable to interpret any text, whereas this is not the case with the language of design. Although there might be a chance of misinterpretation between the intentions of the writer and the comprehension of the reader, this is much more complicated with product appearance. Design is ‘understood’ mostly unconsciously - not interpreted as languages- and therefore we propose to discuss the perception of the design language.

It is fair to raise the question whether people do perceive the language of the designers, if they comprehend the intentions of the designers, above all when users and designers come from different culture. Design is a creative activity and the visual form of products is often determined by designers’ intuitive judgments and educated guesses (Crilly, Moultrie & Clarkson, 2004). Therefore, in order to create products that will carry the desired message to users, it is important to verify consumers’ perception of product’s visual appearance during the development process – preferably cross culturally.

This paper, a case study, describes a research to evaluate whether the perception of product appearance by users of several different countries match with the intentions of the design team. It was conducted as part of an evaluation of a design proposal for a multifunctional printer/copier of Océ, a European manufacturer of professional printing systems and influenced dramatically the visual appearance of the final (or forthcoming) product.

Theoretical Framework

Product Appearance There are 6 roles identified for product appearance (Creusen, 2005):

(1) communication of aesthetics. Product appearance can have a hedonic value for consumers, as looking at it, or feeling it, may give them pleasure.

(2) symbolic. Product appearance can communicate meanings and generate symbolic associations.

(3) functional. Appearance communicates practical information about performance and functioning of the product.

(4) ergonomic information. It can help derive beliefs about the ergonomic value of the product, which concern usability (Creusen, M., 1998).

(5) attention drawing. Appearance can draw attention of consumers, relevant in the buying process.

(6) categorization. Product appearance can help identifying whether it is a typical or

an atypical product and support assigning to a certain category.

The latter two are somewhat dialectical, as a product that is really outstanding risks becoming unfamiliar or even not recognized. This touches another aspect of appearance, or better its attractiveness, as this is influenced by the balance between typicality and novelty. Typicality is defined as a “goodness of example” (Hekkert, 2003) and is related to the findings that people prefer the most typical products of a category, the ones that are often also very familiar and they have been exposed to repeatedly (Hekkert, 2005). However, at the same time, people have always been attracted by new, unfamiliar and original things, partly to overcome boredom and saturation effects. People prefer novel designs as long as the novelty does not affect typicality, or, phrased differently, preferred products are the ones with an optimal combination of both aspects or that respect the MAYA - Most Advanced Yet Acceptable - principle (Raymond Lowey, 1951 cited in Hekkert, 2003).

The balance between typicality and novelty implies that the aesthetic preference is also moderated by individual’s previous experiences. This is supported by Coates (2003, cited in Crilly, Moultrie & Clarkson, 2004) who discussed the subjective experiences of the consumer. According to Coates (2003), the extent to which the appearance appears to make sense to the viewer (subjective concinnity) is determined by the consumer’s personal, cultural and visual experiences that assist them in understanding the product. For example, products that use design cues from other products, or exhibit a good degree of commonality with existing designs are often easier to comprehend. Therefore, culture and context should be taken into account when evaluating the appearance of a product.

Though not mentioned by all these authors, we assume that the interface of products is not only a part of the entire product appearance, but sometimes can be considered as the main contributor. The entire experience of some modern products (consider the Iphone) is moderated by their interface and the ‘graphic’ design language strongly influences and potentially even overshadows product appearance. Therefore in this research both product and interface appearance were studied.

Product Appearance as a Persuasive Communication ToolAppearance can also be discussed from the designers’ perspective, as a way to convey meaning. Surely the same roles as described in 2.1 apply, yet there is another dimension: whether one designs a product for a consumer or for a user (Morello 1995). “Consumer-oriented design focuses on differentiation, seduction and the first ‘wow’ experience; user-oriented design focuses on support of users in their activities and the lasting experience of everyday use, beyond the scope of first impressions” (Author, 2008). When the roles of appearance are considered, the functional, ergonomic, and categorization roles can be contributed towards design with a user-oriented frame of mind, whereas the aesthetical, symbolic, and attention drawing roles are related towards design with a consumer-oriented frame of mind.

An important aspect of (the design of) product appearance is to persuade people to choose your product, by expressing discriminating values that consumers consider appropriate within a specific product category. Designers may well appeal to design languages that will not be considered ‘beautiful’ but communicate relevant values and are

pretty convincing to their clients, just consider e.g. Caterpillar, with its rugged design language. But what kind of persuasive message can product appearance carry? It can reinforce the image of a brand, as the identity of a brand is expressed visually in the appearance of products (Schmitt and Simonson, 1997). Karjalainen (2007) postulates that companies must develop designs that not only appear attractive but also carry distinctive references to the “character” of the brand, manifest in defined core values. Visual recognition of brands and products has become a central competitive factor within various products categories and design can help translating the brand identity into an image to be perceived by customers. The product can act as the connector between the brand identity and the image as it translates the brand values in a tangible form and is usually the main source of contact between the brand and its customers (Roscam Abbing, 2005). Being so, designers devise the appearance of the product as the carrier of the brand message.

Communicating brand values through product or interface appearance is not a simple task. Firstly due to the nature of products, it is a way of communication that is hard to adjust to local taste; as it is costly to customize products for being more acceptable to the standards of different cultures. Secondly there is the life span of durable products, outliving any advertisement campaign; consider them as ‘frozen’ brand communication (Author, 2008). Thirdly there is a considerable time gap –even years!- between the moment a designer settles upon a specific appearance and the moment a consumers glimpses it. This induces the lack of real interaction between designer and consumer, though in every basic communication model feedback is considered crucial.

The communication gap is an accepted characteristic of designers´ work, yet it is rare that designers try to close the gap by creating a feedback loop within the product development. Usability research is fairly common within product development, but it is hard to find relevant literature describing measuring the perception of product appearance or adjusting it to communicate better intended brand values – let alone cross culturally.

CultureThe way products are perceived can be influenced by people’s personal context, and culture is one of the aspects that moderates these differences (Crilly, Moultrie & Clarkson, 2004). Yet what is culture and why do we assume it influences perception? An useful definition is given by Spencer-Oatey (2000): “a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs, behavioral norms, and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people, and that influence each member’s behavior and his/her interpretation of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behavior”. Compared to other well known definitions ( Schein, 2004; Kroeber & Kluckhohn 1952 or Hofsteede 1994) she adds that culture influences ‘interpretation’, indicating that it might influence the perception of appearance as well.

However, culture is a rather widely used word, for instance referring to specific groups, lifestyles, art or national differences. In his paper we decided to use the latter, following Dahl (2006): “In more practical terms (…) countries are the preferred unit of analysis. There are several good arguments for this: Firstly, the nationality of a person can easily be established. (..) Secondly, there is considerable support for the notion that people coming from one country will be shaped by largely the same values and norms as their co-patriots”.

There are several well cited researchers on the topic of culture, as Kroeber &

Kluckhohn; Schein; Hofstede; Trompenaars and Hamden Turner; Hall; and Schwartz. Most relevant for this research and used as basis of comparison of the countries analyzed in this study, seem to be both Hofstede and Hall. Geert Hofstede developed his model when researching national differences in employee values within a large multinational company, and his participants are (very) similar to the participants sampled within this case study. He discerns five dimensions (Hofstede 1994, and 1991) to describe the differences:

Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally;

Individualism (IDV) versus collectivism is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups;

Masculinity (MAS) versus femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders;

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity;

Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation; values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'.

Eduard’s T. Hall’s insights concern amongst others the way in which information is communicated. We consider appearance a form of communication and therefore Hall’s model seems relevant. He identified four dimensions of which three are relevant (Syarief et al, 2003):

High / low context; A high-context communication is one where most of the meaning is in the context, whereas a low-context communication is one where most of the meaning is in the transmitted message.

Time; Hall discerns two types of time: Polychronic time (simultaneous and concurrent, ‘Many-things-at-once’) and Monochronic time (sequential and linear, ‘One-thing-at-a-time’)

Speed; This refers to the speed with which people decode and act on messages, either fast (as headlines, cartoons, commercials) or slow (as books, poetry, art).

Research Design

Summarizing: product and interface appearance can be seen as part of the brand communication, a persuasive communication tool to express discriminating values that consumers consider appropriate. Characteristically there is a considerate time gap between the development of a product and the visual perception of the user. The perception is mediated amongst others by users´ cultural context. Therefore, in order to create products that will carry the desired message to users, it is important to verify consumers’ perception of product’s visual appearance during the development process – preferably cross culturally.

Research Questions

This research can be described as an explorative, single case study (Yin 1992). There were two reasons to settle upon a single case study, most obvious because for Océ only the perception of the product at hand was relevant. Secondly - as far as we know – a cross cultural study on the perception of product appearance is rare as no literature was found; therefore the insights are ‘revelatory’ (Yin, 1992). But the implication of researching a strategic product in progress, is that the result - how the design was changed - can not be shown. Put simply, there is a difference between the original aim of the research and the goal of this paper.

The original aim was to investigate if different cultures perceive the same values in the specific design or if it varied. In case of variation the research should provide insight concerning the nature of this difference in order to support actionable results to improve the design of the product. The main research questions explored in this paper are:

How can the cultural differences in perception of product appearance be measured and / or understood?

Do users perceive the intended values of the designers by means of the product appearance and does this vary cross culturally?

Do users think these intended values are relevant and does this vary cross culturally?

Method In (Benedek & Miner, 2002) two new methods are described to evaluate the desirability of products in a usability lab setting. One of these methods uses a set of 118 product reaction cards with positive and negative words, such as attractive and confusing. By means of these reaction cards the participant indicates the words that are applicable to the product. Then the participant is asked to select the 5 words that best describe the product. An interview is conducted as the last part of the methodology allowing the participant to explain what his intention or meaning was when choosing a certain word.

Especially this second step seemed very usable for our study, though it relies strongly on words and the meaning of words. This is already difficult within one language as words can easily be interpreted differently, let alone when used cross culturally, in different languages. Just consider the word “home” which means much more then just the house where one lives, yet when translated to e.g. French, Italian or German, the word loses its rich connotations (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981).

The method, originally developed for Microsoft products, needed to be adjusted to the specific context before we were able to use it. Beforehand the 118 product reaction cards were translated to Dutch and reduced to 80, as some were simply not applicable for this case (e.g. ‘gets in the way’) or in the translation nuances disappeared in Dutch (‘appealing’ and ‘attractive’)! Besides we had to go to potential users, instead of getting them to the research lab, requiring specific tools to be able to perform the research and record data ‘on the spot’. There is a risk of bias due to sampling method when a relatively small number of subjects had to come to the lab, only recruiting motivated people.

The research was done in three steps, with specific goals per stage:

(1) An explorative pilot study, aimed at understanding and eventually adjusting the aforementioned methods to the specific situation of Océ.

Based on these results the cross cultural research was designed.

(2) A remote survey, by means of a web questionnaire; aimed to supply the team with general information concerning cultural differences and first time perception towards multifunctional devices.

(3) A qualitative research, based on generative techniques; aimed to explore and understand the cultural differences that manifested in the remote survey

The methodology used in each of these steps will be described per step. An important notion is that both product appearances and interface appearance were explored.

Sampling of CountriesOn an international study it is not possible to take into account all cultures in the world; for that reason three countries were chosen, as the start point of this effort: the Netherlands, Brazil and the USA. The first because it is the company’s country of origin; where the headquarters are situated and where most of the past research had already taken place. The USA due to its size and importance in Océ’s market; and Brazil as having a rather different cultural profile (see table1, Hofstede’s scales) then the two other countries. Brazil is also interesting as it is part of the BRIC countries that are expected to increase importance in the international context.

Dimensions /Countries Brazil Netherlands USA

position points position points position points

Power Distance 14th 69pt 40th 38pt 38th 40pt

Uncertainty Avoidance 21st 76pt 35th 53pt 43rd 46pt

Individualism 26th 38pt 4th 80pt 1st 91pt

Masculinity 27th 49pt 51st 14pt 15th 62pt

Long Term Orientation 6th 65pt 10th 44pt 17th 29pt

Table 1: The three countries according Hofstede’s scales

A brief description of the three cultures according to Hofstede and Hall:

For Brazil, the high uncertainty avoidance indicates a concern for rules, regulations, controls and issues with career security – typically, a society that controls everything in order to eliminate or avoid the unexpected. A large power distance indicates that inequalities of power and wealth have been allowed to grow with Brazilian society. High long-term orientation ranking signifies Brazil has respect for tradition and supports a strong work ethic where long term rewards are expected as a result of today’s work. The collectivist aspect is reflected in the close long-term commitment to the member ‘group’, be that a family, extended family, or extended relationships. Loyalty in a collectivist culture is paramount, and over-rides most other societal rules. In terms of Hall’s values Brazil can be described as a country that uses fast messages (especially with the influence of TV), with high context communication and has a polychromic understanding of time.

The Netherlands, the high score on individuality shows that the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. The relatively low masculinity index value may be indicative of a low level of differentiation and discrimination between genders. In this culture, females are treated more equally to males in all aspects of society. The low masculinity ranking may also be displayed as a more openly nurturing society. According to Hall, Netherlands has typically low context communication and monochrome use of time.

Individualism ranks highest and is a significant factor in the life of Americans. The low ranking of long-term orientation reflects a freedom in the culture from long-term traditional commitments, which allows reacting quickly to new opportunities. The high masculinity indicates that the country experiences a higher degree of gender differentiation of roles with the male dominating a significant portion of the society and power structure. This situation stimulates the female population to shift toward the male role model and away from their female role. Low power distance reinforces a cooperative interaction across power levels and creates a more stable cultural environment. Finally, low uncertainty avoidance is indicative of a society that has fewer rules and does not attempt to control all outcomes and results. It also has a greater level of tolerance for a variety of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. According to Hall, the USA uses fast messages, has low context communication and polychromic use of time. This means that Americans will probably prefer a source of communication that is clear in it self, but that is not static showing more than one thing at a time.

Case Description

Company & ProductsOcé is a large multinational company that develops printing systems, scanners, copiers, software applications and services to share information effectively amongst people. It has a long history, spanning 135 years, and operates in different markets, ranging from offices, CAD and display graphics (posters, billboards), to book-printing. It is active in more than 90 countries, has a workforce of 24,000 employees and achieves annual revenues of over US 4 billion. Many of its products are developed by one of the company’s eight R&D sites, with in total 1,800 employees.

The Values As the design team wants to understand whether the design intentions are understood, the very first thing required for this research was what product values and / or brand values the team wanted to communicate. Though the designers ‘know’ what makes a product a typical Océ product, it was never explicitly articulated and the mentioned methods requird a shortlist of values as a reference. Influenced by several brand essence routines performed at Océ (Author, 2008), the design team formulated eight attributes to be communicated by means of the design, used as reference in the entire research1.

1 Only in the last step, the in depth interview understandable was replaced by professional (profissional in Portuguese)

Netherlands (Dutch) Brazil (Portuguese) USA (English)

Begrijpelijk Compreensível Understandable

Betrouwbaar Confiável Reliable

Krachtig Potente Powerful

Nuttig Útil Useful

Persoonlijk Pessoal Personal

Vriendelijk Amigável Friendly

Modern Moderno Modern

Makkelijk Fácil Easy

Table 2: Values used in the web-questionnaire research in three languages

Sampling of ParticipantsIn all three research steps, the target group for this research consisted of employees of middle and large offices with more than 30 people, both business and governmental. First contacts went through acquaintances of the authors, and internally people were recruited through our contacts within these organizations. All participants contributed in only one step, and ideally had no previous experience with Océ’s products, which was feasible except for few participants in the pilot. Subjects must work in large workgroups who share printers and other office equipment.

In total 38 companies were selected and 141 participants contributed (table 3).

Netherlands USA Brazil Total

Pilot Organizations 2 governmental

4 business

- - 6 organizations

Respondents 18

7 (39%) male

11 (61%) female

18 respondents

Survey Organizations 2 governmental

5 business

2 governmental

5 business

1 governmental

6 business

21 organizations

Respondents 35

21 (60%) male 14

(40%) female

20

14 (70%) male

6 (30%) female

32

21 (66%) male 11

(34%) female

87 respondents

56 (64%) male

31 (36%) female

In depth Organizations 1 governmental 1 governmental 1 governmental 11 organizations

interviews 2 business 4 business2 2 business

Respondents 12

9 (75%) male

3 (25%) female

12

5 (42%) male

7 (58%) female

12

7 (58%) male

5 (42%) female

36

21 (57%) male

15 (43%) female

Table 3: Participants’ samplings during the research

Pilot StudyA first pilot study was conducted in the Netherlands to explore the perception of a design proposal, based on the methodology with the reduced set of 80 product reaction cards (see 3.2). Furthermore, as a kind of sensitizing step, we decided to rate the product with some other products regarding a shortlist of eight values. As stimuli 5 products were used, 4 relevant competitor products and one which was the new design – though still a prototype. This implied that not all parts were finalized, especially the user interface that was an off the shelf small monitor. The products were all presented exactly the same with photos made under the same conditions and without any background or brand. Besides the products´ pictures, images of the interfaces and screenshots of software were also used.

In this pilot study 18 Dutch participants (see table 3) were asked to participate in the following two parts:

(1) Indicate the relative position of five products according to the eight proposed values, strictly based on visuals of the product, and the interfaces. A special software tool was developed so that the participants could easily position the products relatively to each other. It was not possible to overlap these, because they could not be placed at the same place (see figure 1). The position immediately could be derived and used for further analysis.

(2) Choose among the 80 words, the ones that best described a new Océ product, in a specific sequence. Afterwards, in a short interview the reasoning behind this selection could be explained.

2 More companies were contacted in USA, because it was harder to find participants in this country. People were always very busy and did not have an hour available for the interview.

Fig. 1: An exemplary page of the tool used for ranking stimuli in the pilot

This test provided a good insight on how the Océ product is perceived against its competitors, resulting in significant changes in the design language. The mere fact that it was a prototype was clearly felt by the participants, but the disappointing results could not only be accounted to that. Besides it also gave the possibility to evaluate the two methods. Most relevant results for the latter were:

a. Though planned as a sort of sensitizing, it became clear that participants can and like to position products along a scale, indicating to what extent they perceive the intended values through product appearance. These data gave a good understanding on how well a design is perceived, though lacking the rationale behind it.

b. The most interesting insights were generated in the second part from the selected product reaction cards, above all the interview, which made clear what people valuate and why.

c. The relation between the values also became clearer. This was already expected for some of the positive values, but turned out to be more complex than expected. E.g. one of the competing products was considered rather dated, but therefore several of the participants concluded that it also had to be very reliable.

d. The list of production reaction cards could be shortened to ‘just’ 46, to be used in the in depth interviews.

The International Survey

Set Up

Only measuring product appearance along scales for specific values was considered fine for the survey, though it would not give insight in the motivations of participants. The third step would be in-depth interviews, arguably making sense out of the survey. Almost the same stimuli were used, with two exceptions. First another competitor was added and second – important for the design team – the same new design was used, yet less visibly a prototype, adding a proposal for an interface and different product colors.

Fig 2: the stimuli in the survey

The survey was composed of four areas:

(1) Familiarization: Participants were presented to the 6 products thorough a collage of images of their product design, user interface and web application (Fig. 2). They were asked to look carefully at the products and state if they are familiar with any of them.

(2) Benchmark perception; participants were asked to rate the 6 products in a scale from one to ten, indicating how much each of them matched with the 8 values selected by the design team, first for product appearance and then for interface appearance3. Unfortunately it was not possible (due to HTML technology) to have ‘sliders’ as in the pilot on which the products could be positioned comparatively. Therefore every product separately had to be judged by means of a 10 point scale, on the relevant values. The order 3 The order of appearance of each set (product vs. UI) did not vary: the product perception test always

precede the user interface rating. This decision was based on the idea that the perception of such engines happens in steps: the aesthetic of the product is perceived first, followed by the interface.

of appearance of the words varied for each participant to reduce error due to order effect.

(3) Preference evaluation; the participant had to rate (in a seven point scale) whether they considered the values themselves important, for the product appearance and interface appearance separately. This way, it would be possible to observe two different points: first whether the participants recognize the importance of the eight values chosen by the designers; and second, if these patterns differ across countries.

(4) Finalizing; the participants were asked to provide company name, job title, some background information. In addition there was an open box for comments.

Results

The questionnaire was analyzed after 3 weeks when there were 280 clicks (100 in NL, 112 BR and 68 US) and 87 completed (35 in NL (42%); 32 BR (37%) and 20 US (23%)). From them 56 (64,4%) were male and 31 (35,6%) female (see table 2).

Concerning product appearance, the score of the different products are significantly different between them for all values: understandable, powerful, useful, personal friendly, modern and easy. But no cultural differences were found in the perception of these values. Table 4 summarizes of the statistical results of all values.  

Values A B C D E F

Understandable

F (4.356, 365.9) = 7.86, p<.001

Mean 5.0 5.6 5.0 5.3 5.7 6.1

Std. Error .24 .25 .25 .25 .24 .24

Reliable

F (4.280, 359.5) = 2,756, p<.05

Mean 5.8 5.9 5.5 5.7 5.8 6.3

Std. Error .23 .23 .25 .25 .23 .24

Powerful

F (3.52, 295.6) = 7.424, p<.001

Mean 6.6 5.9 6.5 6.4 5.7 5.6

Std. Error .22 .21 .21 .23 .21 .24

Useful

F (4.21, 354.1) = 4.25, p<.001

Mean 6.5 6.6 6.3 6.5 6.8 7.0

Std. Error .25 .24 .24 .23 .22 .22

Personal

F (3.90, 328.3) = 8.70, p<.001

Mean 3.8 4.4 3.4 4.2 4.2 4.7

Std. Error .26 .27 .24 .29 .27 .30

Friendly Mean 6.6 5.9 6.5 6.4 5.7 5.6

F (3.96, 320.6) = 13.67, p<.001Std. Error .22 .21 .21 .23 .21 .24

Modern

F (3.82, 310.1) = 13.39, p<.001

Mean 5.9 6.6 4.4 6.1 5.9 6.4

Std. Error .28 .25 .29 .32 .24 .24

Easy

F (4.18, 338.6) = 10.52, p<.001

Mean 4.9 5.6. 4.8 5.3 5.6 6.3

Std. Error 25 .24 .25 .27 .20 .26

Table 4: Results of survey for product appearance

Concerning interface appearance, the score of the different products are significantly different between them for all values: understandable, powerful, useful, personal friendly, modern and easy. But this time the perception of the interface appearance did differ cross culturally, with the exception of the value personal!

UnderstandableMean

Std. Error

ReliableMean

Std. Error

PowerfulMean

Std. Error

UsefulMean

Std. Error

Personal (no cult. Diff.)

Std. Error

FriendlyMean

Std. Error

ModernMean

Std. Error

EasyMean

NL

A 6.2 .39 5.8 .40 4.8 .38 6.1 .40 4.8 .42 4.1 .36 6.0B 6.1 .41 5.8 .37 5.3 .39 6.5 .39 5.4 .42 5.1 .37 5.8C 4.8 .37 5.0 .36 4.6 .40 5.6 .37 4.4 .36 3.8 .44 5.2D 6.2 .41 5.8 .37 5.7 .39 6.4 .40 6.7 .42 7.7 .35 6.2E 5.3 .39 5.5 .38 5.4 .38 6.0 .40 5.3 .42 5.9 .40 5.6F 5.4 .37 5.9 .40 5.4 .36 5.9 .36 5.2 .35 4.7 .35 5.5

USA

A 6.4 .55 6.3 .56 5.4 .54 6.4 .57 4.2 .29 5.5 .60 5.5 .51 6.6B 6.5 .59 6.9 .53 6.3 .55 7.0 .55 4.7 .30 6.5 .59 6.6 .52 6.7C 4.0 .52 5.0 .51 4.9 .57 4.7 .53 4.0 .26 3.8 .51 4.2 .63 4.8D 5.4 .58 5.2 .52 7.2 .55 6.1 .56 6.7 .33 5.5 .59 7.6 .49 5.9E 5.0 .56 5.3 .54 6.6 .53 5.5 .57 4.9 .28 5.3 .59 6.1 .57 5.6F 6.0 .53 5.7 .56 5.1 .51 5.5 .51 4.6 .28 6.2 .49 5.8 .49 6.4

BRAZIL

A 5.5 .42 5.3 .43 4.7 .41 5.5 .43 4.8 .45 4.0 .39 4.9B 5.8 .45 5.5 .40 5.3 .42 6.1 .42 5.4 .45 5.3 .40 5.8C 5.4 .40 5.3 .39 5.2 .44 5.7 .40 4.7 .39 5.3 .48 5.2D 7.2 .44 7.0 .40 7.2 .42 7.4 .43 7.5 .45 8.8 .37 6.9E 6.5 .42 6.5 .41 6.9 .41 6.6 .43 6.2 .45 6.5 .43 6.2F 5.5 .42 5.3 .43 4.7 .41 5.5 .43 4.8 .45 4.0 .39 4.9

Table 5: Results of survey for interface appearance

Concerning preference evaluation (whether or not participants considered the mentioned values relevant for product or interface appearance), the results for all values

were significantly non-normal for both product appearance and interface appearance. This behavior was also detected when separating the values by country. When observing the curves, it was possible to notice that they had a tendency towards one side, indicating that the respondents valued the words similarly and with a tendency to one extreme.

There was no culture difference in the preference for the values for both product and interface appearance.

By a mean rank, the values for product appearance scored: reliable (6.6), useful (6.4), easy (6.3), understandable (6.2), powerful (5.1), friendly (4.7), modern (4.6), and personal (2.9). It cannot be said that reliable is the most important of all, but it is for sure more important than personal.

By a mean rank, the values for interface appearance scored: easy (6.6); understandable (6.5); useful (6.1); reliable (5.9); friendly (5.2); modern (4.5); powerful (4.3); and personal (3.7). It cannot be said that easy is the most important of all, but it is for sure more important than personal.

At the open ended questions different but few additional values were mentioned by the three cultures for product appearance. The Americans mentioned attributes related to cost and power, while the Dutch related to environment and privacy and the Brazilians with cost and quality (both of the print and the engine). For interface appearance hardly anything was mentioned.

Survey Conclusions

Most interesting for both researchers and designers, was to uncover differences between the preferred values to evaluate product appearance and interface appearance. These kind of products ought to look reliable, useful, easy and understandable. The interfaces must look first of all easy and understandable. There is common sense in this, but the implication for the designers is that when designing with the intention to communicate (brand) values, a differentiation for product and interface design should be considered, still providing a coherent image of the whole.

Fig 3: a summary the results for product aesthetics.

Fig. 3 shows that product F scores higher in most of the criteria and C lower. The low performance of C was already found in the pilot study, showing internal validity. Product F is the smallest machines among the presented images, rather typical and has lighter colors. However, whether this explains the preference should be explored in the next phase. The design proposal of Océ, is in the average, not scoring to higher or lower at any of the values. It was better then in the pilot, suggesting that indeed the prototype look influenced the perception of participants in the pilot.

The lack of cultural difference in product aesthetics was unexpected for the researchers, and could be explained either that these machines are considered very functional objects, for which product appearance is not an issue, or that the similarity of the stimuli made it hard for the participants to differentiate them. In the third step this needed to be explored.

For interface appearance the results first of all showed that the new design was perceived well. In two countries it topped the list and in the third it was among the best three. Secondly it showed there was a cultural difference in the benchmark perception, but not for the preference of the values! This means that participants from the three countries

perceived the same values as important, but the way they visualize such values is different4! The Americans appreciated best (for almost all values) two interface appearances that can be described as textual, with a consistent linear navigation prioritizing specific information, whereas the Brazilians appreciated (on all values) an certain interface appearance that relies on images and is decisively non-linear in its navigation structure. They rejected the interface which was preferred by the Americans. The Dutch were somewhat in between, but intriguingly preferred precisely the two interfaces designed by Dutch designers.

These differences might be explained when looking at how Hall’s parameters affect the way the different cultures communicate. The high context communication and polychromic understanding of time of Brazilians can be felt in their appreciation of an interface relying on images and non linear navigation. Many things are communicated at once, and they derive meaning in the context. The low context communication of both Dutch and Americans manifest itself in their appreciation of clear and consistent navigation, emphasizing text and prioritization of specific information (Syarief et al., 2003).

Reflection on the Survey Method

The most important finding was that a remote survey in this format was a limited tool to test aesthetic perception and preference, for three reasons.

Analyzing the data of people that did not finish the survey suggest that it was a hard, if not tedious, task. The playful and fast method with placing all stimuli on sliders of the pilot was appreciated much more. This implies that only those very motivated finished the survey, what is a source of bias.

People do not have the habit to think about appearance, especially in very functional product such as multifunctional devices. Without any training or help, deciding upon preferences on this subject is hard for most people, e.g. showed by the remarks of respondents that “only visuals are not sufficient to judge whether a product is reliable”.

The method does not provide understanding to the reasoning behind it. That means that if a person consciously rates product D as most friendly and C as least, it is still not possible to know why.

In Depth InterviewsThe result of the questionnaire research pointed out the need for preparing the participants for discussing their choices on appearance. This was done by:

Better contextualizing participants before requesting an aesthetic evaluation, by means of generative techniques. These techniques deal with tacit knowledge or latent needs which are the kern of people’s experience and usually difficult to express in words (Visser et al, 2005).

A larger, and above all, more varied set of stimuli, to understand better why people prefer specific appearances for a value. In total 14 stimuli were presented (fig. 5), including the six competitor products of the survey and 8 not used before which composed a more

4 with the exception of “personal” which is perceived similar by all three cultures, but was consider rather unimportant.

differentiated set of products (as e.g. very small or large printers). Most important for the design team, the improved design proposal –based on insights from the pilot- was put in.

There is one disadvantage of this set-up: it takes the respondents considerable time and effort. As both researchers and design team felt that the interface appearance was well perceived by participants and the results sufficiently understood, the last step of the research was limited to product appearance.

Set Up

The session was organized in the following steps:

(1) Sensitization. A sensitizing package consisting of little activities was given to the participants in the week before the session. It worked as a first contact and requested them to explore their office context helping to reflect in advance about the issues that would be discussed in the session. It was designed to be playful, but looking professional, so that participants treat it seriously but also enjoy doing.

Fig. 6 – Sensitizing package

(2) A warming up (20 min.); Participants were asked to reflect on their sensitizing material, made a collage on their experiences with printers and choose a favorite office chair from a pool of 9. All these activities served to prepare in more then one way the participant for the next step.

(3) Perception evaluation (25 min.); This aimed at understanding individual preference and perception towards multifunctional engines. The 15 stimuli were presented and first the respondents were asked to choose their favorites and explain why. This

explanation helped defining the ‘user values’ by generating words that explain how users evaluate such products. After that, they were requested to choose the stimuli that best and least represented the 8 ‘designer values’ (table 2)5, and motivate it. These ‘designer values’ were presented one value at a time and the order of appearance changed for each participant in order to avoid order error.

(4) Finally, only the design proposal was shown, together with the shortened list of 46 product reaction cards of the pilot study. In this way people were enabled to reflect on the design even more.

5 For the interviews understandable was replaced for professional, as the latter is a important value for Océ and the former is very closed to easy and useful.

Fig 5. The set of stimuli for the in depth interviews

Results In table 6 the results are summarized. Some interesting observations:

The new design, adopted from the feedback of the pilot, was perceived better, both during the perception evaluation and when shown alone. It was appraised for aesthetics, and was perceived as ‘professional’, though per nationality noticeable difference were found. The Dutch considered it ‘robust’, ‘reliable’, ‘easy’ and ‘inviting’. For the Americans it lacked a bit of human perspective, naming it ‘efficient’, ‘reliable’ and ‘useful’. For Brazilians, not used to products of this size, it was ‘modern’, ‘robust’ and ‘powerful’, but the impression it arose was of being ‘too much’.

The products chosen as the favorite strongly suggest a culture difference in the perception of the stimuli. The Dutch males seem to prefer products with a bold, symmetrical, angular and masculine appearance, best represented by product H. The Dutch females and the Americans participants preferred smaller products, with a separate touch screen interface on top, naming it ‘modern’, ‘slim’, ‘simple’ and ‘clean’, represented by product K. Brazilians also liked ‘K’, but even more appreciated the small product G, referring to its ‘simplicity’.

The favored stimuli are also chosen as best representing several designer values, often referring to “because it is my favorite”. This suggests that either that the ‘designer values’ are indeed the most relevant, or that first impression mediates further evaluation. This can be compared to Norman (2004) who found that “affect changes the operating parameters of cognition (..)Aesthetics matter: attractive things work better”.

As for what they do not like, participants cited ‘big’ and ‘complex’ products which they cannot understand, although the chosen stimuli were different across countries! The Dutch disliked (as in the pilot) the product that looks ‘old fashioned’ with ‘dark colors’, whereas the Americans and Brazilians chose the product most untypical in the set of stimuli which was seen as intimidating and with lots of parts that can cause problems.

Little cultural difference was found in the way the three countries describe each value, but there was great variation in the way they are visualized. For example, ‘easy’ was often described as ‘simple’, yet the Dutch chose products with a clean design, lacking details, buttons and features (either small or big), as apparently products with many features and buttons represent complexity. The Brazilians considered above all small printers to be the most easy. The Americans preferred for ‘easy’ the familiar -fairly large- products with strong (semantical) cues on ‘what is what’ and large interfaces, demonstrating they are used to these complex products with large interfaces, as long as these are familiar! Another example is ‘modern’: though the presence of a large color interface positively contributes for this value for most participants, still relevant differences were seen. The Dutch considered color, form language and the ‘well hidden functions’ to be ‘modern’, whereas the Americans rated non-familiar products high, naming it ‘futuristic’.

There were semantic problems in the understanding of three values: useful, reliable and personal, that mostly could be interpreted in the interview. E.g. ‘reliability’ could

concern ‘typical’ products (10 participants); ‘industrial’ and ‘robust’ products (6 Dutch males); to ‘not causing paper jams’ (8 participants) or referring to ‘large interfaces enabling full control, providing the necessary functions when needed’ (4 participants).

One stimulus was actually a scanner, not a printer. Some people choose it as their favorite exactly because it is different, modern and does not look like a printer. Some others choose it as their least favorite because of the same reason. This finding is in accordance with the MAYA theory (Hekkert, 2005). However, this polarity was not present in all the three cultures. Brazilian respondents never chose product N as the most representative of any value and often choose it as the least. This finding somehow supports Coates (2003) ideas as Brazilian culture and/or office context seam to influence the preference for more typical products, as in Brazil the respondents are only used to smaller printers. The workgroup printers as used in the research, are in Brazil considered to be used only in central reproduction departments.

CountryGender

NetherlandsMale (9) Female(3)

BrazilMale (7) Female (5)

United Male (5)

StatesFemale (7)

Favorite 5H/1K/1N/1P/1Q

2K/1P 3K/2G/1H/1R

3G/1C/1K 2K/1H/1J/1P

2K/2J/2M/1L

Least Favorite

2L/1D/1G/1H1L/1M/1N/1P

2L/1N 4C/1B/1H/1R

1B/1C/1F/1G/1R

2C/1D/1G/1H

4C/2N/1R

Useful 2C/2K/2P/1B/1N/1R

2P/1C 2R/1C/1G/1K/1J/1P

2F/1B/1C/1R

1C/1G/1K/1M/1na

2K/2L/1C/1J/1P

Least Useful 3N/2C/2R/1B/1G

2R/1Q 3H/2G/2N 2H/1G/1N/1Q

3N/1R/1na

4R/2N

Professional 4H/3C/1J/1L

2N/1C 3C/1B/1H/1L/1J

2C/2J/1L 2P/2H/1C 2K/1C/1F/1H/1L/1M

Least Prof. 6G/1D/1R 3G 5R/2G 2R/2Q/1N 3G/2R 5G/1BModern 3H/3J/2N/

2K2N/1C 2H/2K/1G/

1R3K/1B/1H 2J/2N/1H 3H/3K/1N

Least Modern

2L/2N/2M/2R/1D

3G 3N/2R/1G/1M

2N/1B/1G/1L

3R/1G/1Q 2L/2N/1G/1H/1Q

Easy 2D/2H/1J/1K/1N/1P

1K/1C/1P 1D/1G/1J/1K/1M/1P/1R

3R/1G/1Q 2K/1G/1P/1R

2K/2N/1F/1L/1R

Least Easy 2C/2H/2P/1K/1N/1na

1C/1D/1G 5H/1C/1P 3H/1C/1P 3C/1H/1Q 3P/2C/1K/1N

Powerful 5H/2C/2J 2C/1P 3L/2C/2H 2C/2H/1J 5H 3H/2L/1B/1CLeast Powerful

6R/3G 3R 4G/3R 3R/2G 4R/1G 4G/2R/1Q

Reliable 6H/1J/1P/1na

1B/1D/1L 2G/2L/1B/1H/1P

1G/1F/1K/1P/1R

3K/1D/1J 2K/2L/1F/1N/1P

Least Reliable

5G/1D/1L/1N/1na

2G/1Q 2H/1C/1D/1G/1N/1R

3H/2N 2R/1C/1N/1Q

2H/1C/1G/1K/1J/1Q

Personal 2G/2N/1D/1K/1L/1P

1D/1K/1N 2G/2K/1H/1P/1R

3G/1P/1R 2G/1J/1K/1R

2K/2N/1G/1M/1R

Least personal

3H/3L/2N/1C

3H 5H/1N/1R 3H/2N 3H/2C 3C/2H/2L

Friendly 2D/2G/2J/1H/1N/1R

1D/1J/1R 3K/3R/1G 1K/4na 3K/2M 2R/1D/1F/1J/1K/1M

Least friendly

3C/3L/2N/1H

2K/1Q 2H/2N/1B/1C/1K

1N/4na 2N/2C/1J 5H/1C/1P

Table 6. Selected products for each value

Reflection on the In Depth Interviews MethodIn-depth interview including a thorough sensitizing was a good approach for an aesthetic evaluation of products as it allowed participants to express their opinions and the researcher to understand the reasoning behind them. Participants often mentioned that it was a fun interview. The way the interview was structured also helped reaching the desired information. By starting to talk about people’s office, participants could elaborate on something they are familiar and knowledgeable, making them feel more at ease with the discussion. At the same time, during the collage or the talk, they were asked to think about their relationship with printers and could realize how much they know (or have pre-concepts) about it. The chair exercise was a warm up for the aesthetic evaluation and confirmed that people have aesthetic opinions and can relate values, such as futuristic, to products. Chairs are simple products with which people are more used and it helped participants get used to the assignment. Compared to the survey a more varied and larger set of stimuli was used that helped participants in selecting and explaining their choice, and provided more valuable results for the designers. In the end of the interview, when evaluating the new product design, people were more prepared to talk about the product and had many interesting comments.

Yet there is one drawback with this method: it takes considerable time of the participants, and especially in the USA this was a problem, resulting in many cancellations. For this reason, in USA most of the interviews were arranged in the last minute and, therefore, participants did not receive the sensitizing materials, even urging the researchers to slim the interview down, leaving out the collage. This significantly reduced interview time without apparently compromising the quality of the results. This observation suggests that the ‘do’ aspect of generative techniques might not be necessary when performing an aesthetic evaluation.

Research Conclusions

This research was conceptualized to understand how culture differences affect the aesthetic perception of products and was motivated by the desire of Océ designers to reach the international communication of Océ brand through product design. Anchored on the results,

the goal of this paper is twofold: to evaluate the used methods and to reflect on measured cultural differences.

MethodFrom a methodological point of view, during the research several methods were tried and developed. Our first conclusion is that a web survey (in this format) on its own is not a good tool for measuring perception of appearance, let alone cross culturally. In the survey we could not prove cultural differences in perception, yet in the in depth interviews they clearly manifested! Two related reasons seem to contribute to: most of all the results give no clue on the reasoning behind them, and do not help answering what is required for improving the design. Is a product perceived as ‘reliable’ because of the large interface, the size, or the dark colors? Second, as became clear in the in depth interviews, the values themselves as ‘reliable’ can have rather different meanings for respondents, and actually by their choices and motivations it became clear what they meant! A mutual understanding between researcher and participant on meaning only arose in the interviews. Nevertheless the survey was valuable, as part of entire research, hinting e.g. how the proposal was positioned amongst other stimuli, what can be used in the interviews.

Second the interviews proved to be an effective method for evaluating perception and allowed better understanding of the cultural differences and the reasoning behind them. The method with product reaction cards (Bendedek & Miner, 2002) needed to be adapted to the case, but is valuable, as it enables participants to better communicate what their perception is, and the researcher to get a real understanding. The method, developed within the case study, in which stimuli are scaled along a set of ‘designer values’ gave a quick insight in the appreciation of the stimuli. Besides the interviews allowed participants to elaborate on their choices, obtaining valuable insights. For future researches we recommend to use ‘sliders’ on which all stimuli are positioned against the values, as it is easier and more fun.

Third the success of the in depth interviews surely can be contributed towards (1) the more varied set of stimuli; and (2) the sensitization of participants beforehand, linking the evaluation and the context of use. Nevertheless it is likely that the sensitizing procedure was too much of a good thing, as we had valuable results with participants who had a shortened ‘sensitizing phase’!

Cross cultural differences in perceptionMost interesting for both researchers and designers, was to uncover differences between the preferred values for product appearance and interface appearance. The design team assumed that both product appearance and interface appearance should communicate the same values. A more considerate design principle could be to differentiate these two somewhat, as interfaces can be better perceived as e.g. ‘friendly’, ‘inviting’ and products as ‘reliable’, ‘useful’, yet the two together should communicate a coherent image and brand values.

It was discovered that the different cultures value the same attributes in the product appearance, but visualize them different. The same was found in the survey concerning interface appearance. This means that although most of the participants from the three countries appreciated the same values (reliable, useful, easy and understandable) for the design of multifunctional printers, yet each group chose a different product to portray the

values. If for Dutch an ‘easy’ product is visualized by an integrated, clear design in which all modules are integrated, omitting features and details, for Americans ‘easy’ is visualized by familiarity (“similar to the one I use”) and articulating features and details.

But how can this be explained? As Hofstede developed his model with a sampling very similar to ours, we expected that Hofstede’s scales would be a good help in understanding our findings. But we were not able to link our findings with the scales (3.3). For instance, the Americans / Dutch score high on the ‘individuality’ dimension, but had no problems and even liked products designed for shared use, whereas the Brazilians appreciated much more printers that are for individual use. Another example is that according to Hofstede’s scales, the Dutch have a low masculinity score, indicating the country has a low level of differentiation between genders - so we expected that Dutch males would have similar likings as the females. Yet precisely the Dutch males had observable differences with the rest of the participants: they favored a product that is described as ‘masculine’, ‘powerful’, ‘industrial strength’. So Hofstede’s scales can be used for sampling purposes, but seem to be too abstract for explaining the findings.

At the other hand, Hall’s dimensions focusing on communication was helpful, above all for understanding the differences on interface appearance. The concepts of high / low context and polychromic and monochromic time seems to explain why e.g. Americans (low context) liked rather straightforward, linear and text based interface appearance lacking images, precisely what was rejected by the Brazilians (high context). The same could be felt in product appearance, as Americans (low context, polychromic) liked products in which all features are obvious, preferably even text - labeled (“put originals here”), instead of hidden - favored by the Dutch (low context, but monochromic) - as this can only distract from the task at hand.

Yet the research suggest that the best explanation in understanding cultural differences on appearance can be found in the MAYA principle (Hekkert 2005) and the related concept of subjective concinnity (Coates 2003).The differences in the way people perceive a product are affected by their expectation which is related to previous experiences. Previous experiences are influenced both by context of product use and by the context where they work, such as the way people work; how the office environment looks like; the products that are normally used. Americans are used to work with fairly large and fast office equipment, and consider these typical, describing them as ‘easy’ and ‘useful’. In the Brazilian context operators use the same products within centralized repros. Therefore, they will consider the same product fairly ‘untypical’ and describing it therefore as ‘robust’ and ‘powerful’.

Discussion

The findings also demonstrated something else: Dutch males appreciated the design of one Océ product best, and all 4 Océ products were better appreciated by them compared to all other respondents. At the same time the 2 interfaces of Océ in the survey were best appreciated by the Dutch respondents. It is striking that Océ products are developed and designed by mainly Dutch males, and that in the case of interface design several female designers took part of the design team. Although impossible to validate, the findings

suggest that appearances are best appreciated when respondents and designers are coming from the same country! If so, designers should considerate understanding what their own likings are, shaped by their own cultural context, as it manifests some way or other in their designs. Phrased differently: designers should mind the gap between their own cultural context and related assumptions, compared to that of users´ to create successful products.

Therefore it is important to conduct exploratory cross cultural perception studies during the design process, especially in the case of designing for a global market. Later in the development process, the appearance of the new product can be tested internationally in order to check if it is being perceived as intended by the designers. This research could be done rather easily together with the omni-prevalent usability tests in order to provide insights for the overall improvement of the new design.

Limitations

As the focus of this study was culture differences, the balance between the genders was not a focus from the beginning. However, during the interviews in the Netherlands the authors noticed significant differences in the male and female answers. Therefore, in the other countries there was an effort to find an equal number of respondents of both sexes. Although this was not reached, there was more balance in the numbers and no clear gender differences noticed in Brazil or United States. However we recommend that in future studies on culture differences gender differences should be taken into account.

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