Abstract
Traditional intelligent product design usually focuses on functional design, aiming to generate appropriate structures that would provide required functions. Design specifications are mainly formulized into technical descriptions or values that are related to certain functional or usability requirements. In today’s global market, to in-crease user satisfaction, the appearance design of a product become vital for users to make purchasing decisions. This is particularly true of today’s consumer products such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and other electronic products. In intelligent product appearance design, design specifications are merely described as basic geometric dimensions and types of surface materials. Additionally, the aesthetic considerations and emotional needs of product appearance are seldom discussed when establishing design specifications for product appearance design. In this regard, the objective of this study is to propose a design specification representation framework for intelligent product appearance design considering both emotional and aesthetic aspects. The framework be-gins to investigate user needs by acquiring user aesthetic experience. Based on the notion of aesthetic experience, a detailed representation model of appearance design specifications is provided for satisfying user emotional and aesthetic needs. Finally, a case study of the appearance design of digital cameras is provided to demonstrate the acquisition of user needs and establishment of design specifications based on the proposed framework.
Highlights
Traditional intelligent product design usually focuses on functional design, aiming to generate appropriate structures that would provide required functions (A. Chakrabarti & Bligh, 1996; Umeda & Ishii, 1996)
Appearance design specifications are merely described as basic geometric dimensions and types of surface materials
The fuzzy sets obtained from the user experiment and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) can be used to construct a fuzzy model for the reasoning process in intelligent product appearance design
Summary
Traditional intelligent product design usually focuses on functional design, aiming to generate appropriate structures that would provide required functions (A. Chakrabarti & Bligh, 1996; Umeda & Ishii, 1996). To interpret user needs into product artifact, design specifications act as the intermediate that transfers “the language of the users” into technical descriptions of product requirements during conceptual design (Ulrich and Eppinger 2012). In most conceptual design studies, design specifications are mainly formulized into technical descriptions or values that are related to certain functional or usability requirements (Deng 2002, Barnum and Mattson 2010, Komoto and Tomiyama 2012). The appearance design of a product should be taken into consideration as well (Barnes & Lillford, 2009). This is true of today’s consumer products such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and other electronic products. The aesthetic considerations and emotional needs of product appearance are seldom discussed when establishing design specifications for product appearance design
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
