Characterising the experience of interaction: an evaluation of automotive rotary dials.
Optimising sensory product qualities is a priority for automotive manufacturers when developing human-machine interfaces, as user experience frameworks consider sensory aesthetics to be a main influencing factor of the overall judgement of product appeal. This empirical study examines whether users' overall judgements of product appeal can be predicted from measures of non-visual aesthetic qualities. Ninety-one UK owners of Supermini segment cars assessed five examples of rotary temperature dials. Factor analysis gave four clear factors common across all samples, of which 'unrefined loudness' and 'positivity/precision' predicted up to 26% variance in the hedonic score; both factors were similarly important in the regression models. Significant differences in appeal were observed between the samples; however, there were no effects due to age or gender.    Practitioner Summary: The research shows that the overall appeal of automotive rotary dials is partially predicted by their non-visual aesthetics. These findings are applicable to the design of any products where improving the user experience is a goal, as it demonstrates that user experience models are applicable to product domains other than computing and information technology.
WMG, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. t.wellings@warwick.ac.uk
Tom
T
Wellings
Matthew J
MJ
Pitts
Mark A
MA
Williams
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001336:Automobiles; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D004867:Equipment Design; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult