Research on multisensory design of electric shaver from the perspectives of Kansei engineering

Abstract

The market scale of electric shaver in China has reached 26.3 billion¥ in 2021. Consumers currently place an increasing emphasis on the emotional image conveyed by products rather than just concerning with functional satisfaction. To meet consumers’ expectations, the emotional message conveyed by product design is essential under multisensory channels. This reasearch first collected 220 electric shaver samples and 135 pairs of consumers’ Kansei words, and then reduced them into 34 representative samples using multidimensional scale and clustering analysis, with 4 groups of representative Kansei words selected via the expert group. Moreover, consumers’ Kansei images were evaluated via questionnaire using the Semantic Differential scales, with 416 valid samples acquired in total. Meanwhile, design elements of the samples (incl. Item and Category) were classified by ways of morphological analysis and audio software. At last, an associated model of the electric shaver was established between the overall design elements and user's Kansei evaluation under the multisensory channel of visual model and auditory audio taking advantage of Quantification Theory Type I. The proposed model can provide defined design indexes and references in multisensory design, facilitating designers to design in a logical and scientific manner rather than designing as per experience.