Keywords

1 Introduction

With the economy of aesthetics on the rise since the turn of the millennium, numerous corporate organizations have advanced from cost-oriented to design-oriented business models and have developed products of cultural and aesthetic value. Because brands are an abstract concept to consumers, products become a channel for brands to connect emotionally with consumers [1]. There is a growing shift in shopping habits from brick-and-mortar to online stores, where consumers can buy high-quality commodities at affordable and even bargain prices and have more convenient and pleasant shopping experiences [2]. Thus, numerous shopping websites that sell design products are built to provide consumers with diverse shopping experiences. This study explored the role of emotional design in consumers’ purchase intention of, and preference for, design products, thereby elucidating the differences between currently available design products in the consumer market and the assignments of product design courses. The contents and essence of these two types of design products were further investigated. This study aimed to develop assessment criteria and design models for emotionally engaging products, thereby aiding Taiwanese businesses in improving their competitiveness and brand image.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Product Design in the Age of the Aesthetic Economy

The concept of aesthetics has been popularized with the rise of the knowledge economy and provides the foundation for incorporating cultural elements into the design process to create profitable cultural businesses. Given the fact that a well-developed cultural market characterized by the aesthetic economy, experiential economy, and Kansei elements-based consumption has been developed, the culture and creative industry can transform to an industry with high added value if adequate investments of resources and brain power are provided [3]. As the world has entered the age of the aesthetic economy, consumer products made to be culturally and aesthetically engaging while retaining their utility have become tremendously popular. Therefore, cultural and art activities are increasingly launched to promote the aesthetic literacy of the public at large. Against this backdrop, today’s businesses should design their commodities to be both utilitarian and culturally distinctive; moreover, in brand management, the businesses should simultaneously promote aesthetic lifestyles and adopt profitable business models to achieve ideal balance [4].

2.2 Emotional Design of Products

The design, functionality, style, and utility of an emotionally-appealing product in the consumer market together trigger emotions in consumers. These attributes are encapsulated as emotional design [5].

Anderson [6] divided product design into the following dimensions: “functional,” “reliable,” “usable,” “convenient,” “pleasurable,” and “meaningful.” The dimensions of “pleasurable” and “meaningful,” in particular, correspond with the stage of self-actualization in the hierarchy of needs of Maslow [7]. Over the past decade or so, numerous methods have been proposed to measure the emotional design of products. For example, Green and Jordan [8] suggested that products should be made to satisfy four types of human pleasure (i.e., ideo-pleasure, socio-pleasure, physio-pleasure, and psycho-pleasure). Norman [9] argued that good product design ensures a balance between beauty and utility, adding that the emotional design of a product can be assessed in terms of pleasure, utility, aesthetics, attractiveness, and beauty. Khalid and Helander [10] classified consumer needs for products into three categories—holistic attributes, functional design, and styling design, of which holistic attributes and styling design are associated with the feelings and emotions of consumers. Hassenzahl [11] maintained that the aesthetics of a product prompt consumers to understand their perceptions of it and imagine using it.

Moreover, the relationship between the aesthetics and utility of a product can be evaluated on the basis of its utilitarianism (or utility), hedonism (or stimulation and identification), goodness (or satisfaction), and beauty. McCarthy and Wright [12] constructed a model of emotion to indicate that emotions play a part in a consumer’s experience with a product or service. This model encompassed the overall experience, senses, emotions, the wider socio-cultural context, and the immediate venue for usage. Yen, Lin, and Lin [13] developed a model for measuring qualia, arguing that a consumer’s emotions about a product should be explicated on the basis of its appeal, aesthetics, creativity, sophistication, and mechanics. Jagtap [14] designed a measuring scale for the attributes or emotions elicited from the visual appearance of a product, stressing the role of visual appearance in identifying consumer responses to a product and in the commercial success of the product. Jagtap noted that specific attributes and emotions elicited by the visual appearance of a product may help designers in the design process.

2.3 Product Preference and Purchase Intention

The visual appearance of a product accounts for its explicit attributes and can trigger emotional responses. Therefore, the aesthetics of products can induce emotions from consumers, and subsequently, their personality traits and behaviors, and people prefer products that match their self-image and personality [15, 16]. Purchase intention can be defined as one’s willingness to buy a product and recommend it to one’s friends (which can be perceived as a foreseeable behavior after purchase) and used to predict one’s purchase decisions for the short term [17,18,19,20]. In summary, consumers are normally satisfied with products whose functions meet or exceed their expectations; the design of products is a critical factor in products’ commercial success; and consumers are more inclined to choose commodities they prefer, and their purchase intention can be substantially enhanced when such commodities or similar ones have received recommendation [21].

3 Methods

3.1 Research Framework and Hypotheses

This study was confirmatory in nature. With its framework premised on related theories and “preference” as a mediating variable, this study investigated whether the emotional design of products influences consumers’ purchase intention of those products. Creativity, aesthetics, functionality, and pleasure, which constitute the emotional design of products, were used as independent variables; consumers’ perceived preference was used as a mediating variable; and purchase intention was used as a dependent variable. Each variable contained several assessment items. On the basis of related theories and the results of a literature review, the following hypotheses were formulated to address the objective of this study:

  • H1: The elements of product emotional design are important.

  • H1a: Product emotional design significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H1b: Product emotional design significantly influences preference.

  • H1c1: The creative dimension of product emotional design significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H1c2: The creative dimension of product emotional design significantly influences preference.

  • H1d1: The aesthetic dimension of product emotional design significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H1d2: The aesthetic dimension of product emotional design significantly influences preference.

  • H1e1: The functional dimension of product emotional design significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H1e2: The functional dimension of product emotional design significantly influences preference.

  • H1f1: The pleasurable dimension of product emotional design significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H1f2: The pleasurable dimension of product emotional design significantly influences preference.

    To further discuss the interrelationships between product emotional design, preference, and purchase intention, the following hypotheses were proposed:

  • H2: Preference significantly influences purchase intention.

  • H3a: Preference mediates between product emotional design and purchase intention.

  • H3b: Product emotional design influences preference and enhances purchase intention accordingly.

The hypotheses above were tested. Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework and hypothetical model of this study.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Conceptual framework

Full size image

3.2 Experimental Subjects

Design products were collected from Pinkoi (a Taiwan-based website that sells designer products) and design works from university students. The commodities were respectively designated P2, P4, P6, and P8; whereas the students’ works were designated P1, P3, P5, and P7 (Table 1).

Table 1. Experimental subjects
Full size table

3.3 Instrument

A scale was composed on the basis of a literature review and data analysis to measure the effects of different criteria for product emotional design on purchase intention and preference (Table 2). The scale comprised 19 items across five dimensions.

Table 2. Scale for measuring the influence of product emotional design on purchase intention and preference
Full size table

3.4 Experimental Design

Two hundred and thirty five university students with a basic understanding of design (who were potential consumers of design products) were recruited; 59 of them were men and 176 were women. All participants were aged 18–22 years. The students’ design works and the design products shown on Pinkoi (which is popular among young people in Taiwan in terms of both social network sharing and actual purchase) were sampled. The 19 items of the measurement scale (Table 2) were rated on a 7-point Likert scale. In total, 231 valid responses were returned.

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Structural Equation Modeling and Hypothesis Validation

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses, thereby determining the effect sizes of latent and observable variables and the causal relationships among latent variables. Constructed through deduction, the resulting structural model consisted of 19 measurement variables across 4 dimensions, with product emotion design used as an independent variable and purchase intention and preference as dependent variables. Figure 2 shows the structural model and the validation results of the hypotheses.

Fig. 2.
figure 2

The confirmatory of the SEM analysis

Full size image

The goodness-of-fit of the model was tested according to the testing procedures proposed in previous studies [22,23,24,25]. The results of the test showed that the ratio of the chi-squared value to the degree of freedom (X2/df) of the model was 4.351, which fell within the acceptable range of 1–5. The goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and adjusted GFI of the model were below 0.9; its root mean square error of approximation was approximately 0.121, which only slightly exceeded the acceptable range of 0.05–0.1. Other indices of the model were within acceptable levels (RMR = 0.039 < 0.08; PGFI = 0.571 > 0.5; NFI = 0.920 > 0.9; RFI = 0.902 > 0.9; IFI = 0.937 > 0.9; NNFI (TLI) = 0.923 > 0.9; CFI = 0.937 > 0.9; PRATIO = 0.819 > 0.5; PNFI = 0.753 > 0.5; PCFI = 0.767 > 0.5). With almost all of the indices meeting or approximating acceptable levels, the overall theoretical structure of this study and the empirical data exhibited favorable goodness of fit.

As Fig. 2 (illustrating paths in the structural model) and Table 3 (showing the results of SEM) suggest, H1a, H1b, H1f2, H2, H3a, and H3b were validated, whereas H1c1, H1c2, H1d1, H1d2, H1e1, H1e2, and H1f1 were not. The indirect effect of product emotional design on purchase intention and the mediating effect of preference on the relationship between product emotional design and purchase intention were assessed using the Sobel test [26]. The test yielded a Z-value of 23.92 (higher than the benchmark value of 1.96), indicating that the mediating effect of preference on the relationship between product emotional design and purchase intention was significant. Moreover, the results of bootstrapping showed that at 95% confidence interval for the direct effect path of product emotional design on purchase intention did not include 0 (0.069, 0.256; p < .05), indicating that this effect was significant and the mediating effect of preference existed between product emotional design and purchase intention. Therefore, H3a was validated.

Table 3. Results of structural equation modeling
Full size table

The path coefficient for the direct effect of product emotional design on purchase intention was 0.74, whereas that for the indirect effect of product emotional design (with preference as the mediator) on purchase intention was 0.422 (the product of 0.62 × 0.68). The total effect of product emotional design on purchase intention was therefore calculated as follows: 0.62 × 0.68 + 0.74 = 1.16 > 0.74 (total effect > direct effect). Accordingly, H3b was validated. The results of SEM also suggested that the pleasurable dimension of product emotional design strongly affected preference, but that hypotheses for the other dimensions of product emotional design were not validated. Thus, for a product to appeal to consumers, its emotional design should account for not only pleasure but also functionality, creativity, and aesthetics.

5 Conclusions and Recommendations

To distinguish itself from its rivals, build a favorable brand image, and operate sustainably in a market characterized by varying consumer tastes, a business should attune itself to the needs and expectations of consumers. This requires academic research to be conducted; the results of that research must be applied in educational and industrial contexts. The findings of this study can be used to inform the emotional design of future commodities.

This study has the following conclusions. First, the structural equation model for the proposed measurement scale had acceptable goodness-of-fit values, suggesting that the scale may apply well to school courses in product design and to the incorporation of creative elements into commercial products in related businesses. Second, the results of SEM indicated that product emotional design influenced purchase intention; product emotional design, preference, and purchase intention affected each other; the pleasurable dimension of product emotional design had a direct effect on preference, whereas other dimensions did not directly affect preference or purchase intention, except when they were combined with the pleasurable dimension. The results also suggested that preference mediated between product emotional design and purchase intention; therefore, product emotional design affected preference, thereby improving purchase intention.

Businesses in Taiwan are diverse and boast mature production techniques—strengths that enable them to imbue their commodities with cultural value. They can integrate cultural elements such as local lifestyles, Chinese culture, and foreign influences into their products to cement their brand image. By developing high-quality, culturally inspired products that can help to polish brand image, businesses can contribute to the aesthetic economy and become more reputable and competitive.