Perception and Deception: How Quantity and Quality of Sensory Information Affect Users' Perception of Office Chairs

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces an approach for designing products with added affective appeal. We first establish the necessity for such an approach, given the complexity of existing tools and methods, and the growing need to take into account users' affective preferences in the design process. Secondly, we expose the theoretical framework behind our approach, grounded in a transfer of tools from sensory evaluation to qualify and quantify a product's key attributes. We present the results of two studies that allowed us to assess and validate the approach by applying it to the preliminary design phase of an office chair for Steelcase, a leader in the office furniture industry. Office chairs were found to be useful vehicles as people have a prolonged and intimate sensory interaction with this product. A comparison of users' affective reactions to a group of office chairs in different sensory situations allowed us to assess the relative weight of each sense in the perception of the product. Critical product attributes were singled out by applying a free categorization approach to the group of office chairs; free categorization being the act of creating meaningful groups of products according to their perceived similarities or differences.

KEYWORDS:

• pleasure
• design process
• multi-sensory approach
• affective engineering

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander de Rouvray

Biography

Alexander de Rouvray is an industrial designer for The Royal Promotion Group and an adjunct instructor in NYU's department of Design and Digital Art. He was a design consultant at France's Centre Technique du Bois et de l'Ameublement (CTBA) [Technical Centre for Wood and Furniture] for three years and founded their Emotional Design department, working closely with clients such as Steelcase and Dunlopillo. He is the creator of the Disc Hub (www.thedischub.com). He has a PhD in Industrial Engineering from ENSAM Paris, a Master's in Product Design and a Bachelor of Science in Product Design from Stanford University.

Jean-François Bassereau

Jean-François Bassereau is an associate professor of Industrial Design at Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers (ENSAM) in Paris and a pioneer of sensory design. He successfully adapted and evolved sensory analysis methods from the food industry, helping designers to take into account all sensory aspects of a product during the design process. He is the author of many published papers on the topic of user-centred design, and he has been named an expert by the French Ministry of Industry for sensory metrology. He was selected by AFNOR to define a new norm for tactile contact with materials.

Robert Duchamp

Robert Duchamp is a professor of Industrial Engineering and director of the Conception de Produits et Innovation (CPI) [Product Design and Innovation] Lab at ENSAM Paris. He is the author of many published papers on the topic of product design methodology, from risk management to creativity. He founded the CPI Lab in 1978.

Jean-Séraphim Schneider

Jean-Séraphim Schneider is a product engineer for Steelcase, world leader in office furniture design. He graduated from l'Ecole des Mines de Nancy. He has been working with Steelcase's Research and Development department as Head of new products' technical development since 2004. His focus is on integration of perceived quality into the design process, and he has worked closely with the ENSAM to bring new design tools and methodologies to Steelcase.

Sylvie Charbonneau

Sylvie Charbonneau is a product designer with a background in both engineering and art. She worked as a designer for Garson Création, designing decorative objects and children's furniture. She joined the CTBA in 2001 as a product designer. She supervises research on sensory design at CTBA.