No abstract

Today consumers’ demands and choices of products or services are constantly changing rapidly in the internet environment of information technology. The markets emphasize quality, service, and customization, which has been changing the consumption patterns in the decision-making process or companies’ production patterns. The enterprises are essential to respond the changes of the consumption side and production side in order to achieve sustainable development. Moreover, it is important to focus on the relationship of interaction with consumers. This study was intended to explore the influence of brand as symbol on consumer behavior to understand the relations between brand as symbol, perceived transaction value, perceived acquisition value, message-response involvement, and customer loyalty. The empirical analysis is performed by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), including measurement and structural models. The measurement models are examined with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to identify the relations between latent variables and observed variables whereas the structural models are used to find out the relations between latent variables. Meanwhile, path analysis is adopted to understand the influence between the variables. A questionnaire survey was carried out on customers of chain beverage stores in the Chiayi area through convenient sampling 400 copies were administered and 387 valid samples were retrieved. The response rate was 97%. The results indicate that brand as symbol has significant positive influence on perceived transaction value, perceived acquisition value, and customer loyalty. This means brand as symbol alone can have an effect on customer loyalty and will not be influenced by the level of message-response involvement. This conclusion can be applied to help brand managers to establish close relations with consumers when performing brand design.

The university students in departments of industrial design can perform quite well in design basis, practice courses, but their design thinking and imagination appear to be limited. The lack diversity and innovativeness may affect products they design. Therefore, incorporation of innovative theories and methods in design courses to stimulate students' imagination to enhance their performance can be an area worth examining in order to improve current design education. The purpose of this study is to investigate theories and methods that can be adopted in industrial design curriculum planning to stimulate imagination and analyze the effects on students' imaginations. Five experts, each with more than 10 years of experiences in industrial design, are invited to work with the research team to apply the contents of STEP Factors Analysis, Image Mind Map, TRIZ Method, Persona, and Scenario to design courses to be taught to second-year design class in a university for 18 weeks. There are 52 students and they are divided into two groups, 26 people each. The experimental group takes the courses designed to stimulate imagination and the control group the original courses. The experts use a 5-point Likert scale in which Vygotsky's imagination indexes are adapted to record the imagination each week. The results show that the group of using creative methods has better imagination at different design stages.

In this study, five industrial senior designers are invited to observe and record a required design practice course of an industrial design department of a university for one semester, 18 weeks, each week for 5-6 hours. During the process, the imagination indicators proposed by Vygotsky is adopted in combination with a 5-point Likert scale. The sophomore class, 63 students in total, is observed. The outcome of study indicates that when the topics are with limitation, the gender factor has significant influence during design stages, and the influence of students' pre-university learning background is significant as well. When the topics are not limited, the influence of the gender factor also appears to be significant. The pre-university learning background has more influence on the performance of imagination and vocational high school graduates do better than regular high school graduates. In the meantime, students with higher level of class participation exhibit better imagination.