Product Experience summarizes research on the emotional and cognitive experience of using products. The book explores product experience in terms of aesthetics and design, ergonomics and usability, product facilitation of human capacities and skills, entertainment value, and how product experience extends beyond the product itself to brand association, the shopping experience, and product packaging.

The book contains perspectives from a variety of disciplines in psychology, business, art, and engineering to fully understand the many components important to product experience. Product experience begins with judgments of aesthetics and value that are mitigated by environment and use, and then further altered by memory, association with brand, and the relationship one forms with the product.

In contrast to other books, the present book takes a very broad, possibly all-inclusive perspective, on how people experience products. It thereby bridges gaps between several areas within psychology (e.g. perception, cognition, emotion) and links these areas to more applied areas of science, such as product design, human-computer interaction and marketing.

Intended for researchers with an interest in human-product interactions, the book will appeal to psychologists, engineers, and business professionals interested in fully understanding product experience. With coverage of human factors, affect, perception, industrial design, engineering, information processing, ergonomics, industrial-organizational psychology, environmental psychology, business and marketing, communication, and product innovation, the book contains a wealth of information on a topic too broad to easily grasp via primary research in one discipline. International in scope, the book includes research from the US, Canada, UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and Germany.

Contents

Preliminary, TOC, Preface, Introduction (H.N.J. Schifferstein & P. Hekkert)

Part I: From the human perspective

IA. Senses

1. On the visual appearance of objects (Harold T. Nefs)
2. The tactual experience of objects (M.H. Sonneveld and H.N.J. Schifferstein)
3. The experience of product sounds (R. van Egmond)
4. Taste, smell and chemesthesis in product experience (Armand V. Cardello and Paul Wise)
5. Multisensory product experience (H.N.J. Schifferstein and C. Spence)

IB. Capacities & skills

6. Human capability and product design (John Clarkson)
7. Connecting design with cognition at work (David D. Woods and Axel Roesler)
8. Designing for expertise (Axel Roesler and David D. Woods)

Part II: From the interaction perspective

9. Holistic perspectives on the design of experience (Gerald C. Cpuchik and Michelle C. Hilscher)

IIA. The aesthetic experience

10. Product aesthetics (P. Hekkert and Helmut Leder)

11. Aesthetics in interactive products: correlates and consequences of beauty (M. Hassenzahl)

IIB. The experience of meaning

12. Meaning in product use – a design perspective (Stella Boss and Heimrich Hanis)
13. Product expression: bridging the gap between the symbolic and the concrete (T.J.L. van Rompay)
14. Semantics: meanings and contexts of artefacts (Klaus Krippendorff and Reinhart Butter)

IIC. The emotional experience

15. Product emotion (P.M.A. Desmet)
16. Consumption emotions (Marsha L. Richins)

IID. Specific experiences and approaches

17. Product attachment: design strategies to stimulate the emotional bonding to products (Ruth Mugge, Jan P.L. Schoormans, and Hendrik N.J.Schifferstain)
18. Crucial elements of designing for comfort (Peter Vink and MIchiel P. de Looze)
19. Co-experience: product experience as social interaction (Katja Battarbee and Ilpo Koskinen)
20. Affective meaning: the Kansei Engineering approach (Simon Schutte, Jorgen Eklund, S. Ishihara, and M. Nagamachi)

Part III: From the product perspective

IIIA. Digital products

21. The useful interface experience: the role and transformation of usability (John M. Carroll and Helena M. Mentis)
22. The experience of intelligent products (David Keyson)
23. The game experience (Jeroen Jansz)

IIIB. Non-durables

24. Experiencing food products within a physical and social context (Herbert Meiselman)
25. The mediating effects of the appearance of nondurable consumer goods and their packaging on consumer behavior (Larry Garber, Eva M. Hyatt, and Unal O. Boya)

IIIC. Environments

26. Office experiences (Christina Bodin Danielsson)
27. The shopping experience (Ann Marie Fiore)

Closing reflections (H.N.J. Schifferstein and P. Hekkert)