Reaching a balance between product form and function is one of the main challenges of design teams. When users make choices among products with similar functionality and price, esthetics becomes a decisive factor, and understanding how they are perceived through the product form can allow designers to create new designs with more appealing shapes. Gestalt principles explain how subjects group elements of a shape and devise them as a whole, and recent research has proposed their quantification for evaluation of esthetics. This work examines a previous methodology to quantify Gestalt principles of 2D product representations, in particular, expressions to measure the principles of symmetry, parallelism, and continuity are applied to parameterized forms, with a generic bottle silhouette as case study. First, the representation is divided into key atomistic elements, which are generated through cubic Bézier curves. Then, the quantifications of symmetry, parallelism, and continuity, in conjunction with gradient-based optimization, are used on these forms to generate bottle silhouettes with combinations of high and low levels of each principle. The resulting designs were submitted to a discrete choice study in which respondents selected the bottle silhouettes they found more appealing. The preference data were analyzed with both fixed and random coefficients multinomial logistic regression (mixed logit) to determine the part-worth utility of each Gestalt principle over esthetic preferences. In conclusion, the results show differences in the utility estimates of symmetry, parallelism, and continuity, and implications for designers are discussed.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
August 2016
Research-Article
Part-Worth Utilities of Gestalt Principles for Product Esthetics: A Case Study of a Bottle Silhouette
Ambrosio Valencia-Romero,
Ambrosio Valencia-Romero
Human Centered Design Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: ambrosiode.valencia@upr.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: ambrosiode.valencia@upr.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
José E. Lugo
José E. Lugo
Human Centered Design Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: jose.lugo2@upr.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: jose.lugo2@upr.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
Ambrosio Valencia-Romero
Human Centered Design Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: ambrosiode.valencia@upr.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: ambrosiode.valencia@upr.edu
José E. Lugo
Human Centered Design Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: jose.lugo2@upr.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez Campus,
Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
e-mail: jose.lugo2@upr.edu
1Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Design Theory and Methodology Committee of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received March 14, 2016; final manuscript received May 17, 2016; published online June 20, 2016. Assoc. Editor: Harrison M. Kim.
J. Mech. Des. Aug 2016, 138(8): 081102 (9 pages)
Published Online: June 20, 2016
Article history
Received:
March 14, 2016
Revised:
May 17, 2016
Citation
Valencia-Romero, A., and Lugo, J. E. (June 20, 2016). "Part-Worth Utilities of Gestalt Principles for Product Esthetics: A Case Study of a Bottle Silhouette." ASME. J. Mech. Des. August 2016; 138(8): 081102. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4033664
Download citation file:
Get Email Alerts
Related Articles
Large-Scale Needfinding: Methods of Increasing User-Generated Needs From Large Populations
J. Mech. Des (July,2015)
The Effects of Designers' Contextual Experience on the Ideation Process and Design Outcomes
J. Mech. Des (October,2018)
Quantification of Classical Gestalt Principles in Two-Dimensional Product Representations
J. Mech. Des (September,2015)
The Relationship Between Design Outcomes and Mental States During Ideation
J. Mech. Des (May,2017)
Related Proceedings Papers
Related Chapters
Stimulating Creative Design Alternatives Using Customer Values
Decision Making in Engineering Design
Digital Human in Engineering and Bioengineering Applications
Advances in Computers and Information in Engineering Research, Volume 1
The Marketing Research of DSC Viewfinder Technology
International Conference on Advanced Computer Theory and Engineering, 4th (ICACTE 2011)