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In a highly competitive market, customers' product affection is a critical factor to product success. However, understanding customers' affective needs is difficult to grasp; product design practitioners often misunderstand what customers really want. In this study we report our experience in developing and using an affective design framework that identified critical affective features customers have on products and are systematically incorporated into product design attributes. To identify key affective features such as luxuriousness, we utilized the Kansei engineering methodology. This approach consists of three steps: (1) selecting related affective features and product design attributes through a comprehensive literature survey, expert panel opinion, and focus group interviews; (2) conducting evaluation experiments; and (3) developing Kansei models using multivariate statistical analysis and analyzing critical product design attributes. To demonstrate applicability of the proposed affective design framework, 30 customers and 30 product design practitioners participated in an evaluation experiment for car crash pads, and 44 customers and 20 designers participated in an evaluation experiment for two interior room products (wallpapers and flooring materials). The evaluation experiments were conducted via systematically developed questionnaires consisting of a 7-point semantic differential scale and a 100-point magnitude estimation scale. The results of the experiments were analyzed using principal component regression and quantification theory type I method. Using the analyzed survey data, the relationship between luxuriousness and related affective features and product design attributes were identified. This relationship indicated that there was a significant difference in the perception of luxuriousness between customers and designers. Consequently, it is expected that the results of this study could provide a foundation for developing affective products. C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) have potential to provide a new channel of communication and control for people with severe motor disabilities. Although many empirical studies exist, few have specifically evaluated the impact of contributing factors on user performance and perception in BCI applications, especially for users with motor disabilities. This article reports the effects of luminosity contrast and stimulus duration on user performance and usage preference in a P300-based BCI application, P300 Speller. Ten participants with neuromuscular disabilities (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cerebral palsy) and 10 able-bodied participants were asked to spell six 10-character phrases in the P300 Speller. The overall accuracy was 76.5% for the able-bodied participants and 26.8% for participants with motor disabilities. The results showed that luminosity contrast and stimulus duration have significant effects on user performance. In addition, participants preferred high luminosity contrast with middle or short stimulus duration. However, these effects on user performance and preference varied for participants with and without motor disabilities. The results also indicated that although most participants with motor disabilities can establish BCI control, BCI illiteracy does exist. These results of the study should provide insights into the future research of the BCI systems, especially the real-world applicability of the BCI applications as a nonmuscular communication and control system for people with severe motor disabilities.

Few studies have investigated the electrophysiological underpinnings of differences in BCI performance. This study contributes by assessing neuronal synchrony among brain regions. Our findings revealed that severe motor disability causes more cortical areas to be recruited to perform the BCI task, indicating reduced cortical differentiation and specialisation.