‘Most advanced, yet acceptable’: Typicality and novelty as joint predictors of aesthetic preference in industrial design

Abstract

Typicality and novelty have often been shown to be related to aesthetic preference of human artefacts. Since a typical product is rarely new and, conversely, a novel product will not often be designated as typical, the positive effects of both features seem incompatible. In three studies it was shown that typicality (operationalized as 'goodness of example') and novelty are jointly and equally effective in explaining the aesthetic preference of consumer products, but that they suppress each other's effect. Direct correlations between both variables and aesthetic preference were not significant, but each relationship became highly significant when the influence of the other variable was partialed out. In Study 2, it was furthermore demonstrated that the expertise level of observers did not affect the relative contribution of novelty and typicality. It was finally shown (Study 3) that a more 'objective' measure of typicality, central tendency - operationalized as an exemplar's average similarity to all other members of the category - yielded the same effect of typicality on aesthetic preference. In sum, all three studies showed that people prefer novel designs as long as the novelty does not affect typicality, or, phrased differently, they prefer typicality given that this is not to the detriment of novelty. Preferred are products with an optimal combination of both aspects.

The Effects of Typicality and Novelty on Aesthetic Preference: An Investigation of the Maya Principle

“…After reliability tests were confirmed in the form of Intraclass Correlation Coefficients, correlation analyses were performed. Contrary to results indicated by Hekkert et al (2003), the mean typicality and the mean novelty did not indicate negative correlations for any of the three apparel categories. As suggested by Hekkert et al (2003), partial correlations were also calculated, as the logic of the MAYA principle states that both aesthetic properties (typicality and novelty) influence each other.…”

“…Per Hekkert et al (2003), multiple regressions were then conducted to test the MAYA principle. Both hypotheses were tested for (a) pants, (b) jackets, and (c) shirts.…”

A study of expertise effects for products with contradictory semantics

“…All of the selected pictures acquired via the book 1000 Chairs [12], 500 Chairs [13], and the works by famous designers from Internet. The reason for choosing the chair is that they have various styles and represent one of the most famous products in the design history.…”

“…The remaining 96 chairs were divided into 4 groups of 24 chairs each. Each dimensions corresponded to one of the following 4 semantics: novel (typicalunique), modern dimension (traditional -modern), perceptual (rational -emotional), and complicated (complicated -simple) [11][12]. In the second stage, each dimension with respect to one of the pairs of adjectives was divided into 9 subgroups corresponding to a 9-point rating scale, as shown in the Table 1.…”

“…The analysis method using [2] recommended as an indicator to select and define the pictures with and without contradictory semantics. Four dimensions of semantics were used according to the previous studies [11][12], including novel (typical -unique), modern dimension (traditional -modern), perceptual (rational -emotional), and complicated (complicated -simple). We expect to get a reasonable explanation corresponding to contradiction semantics and strengthen this topic for understanding clearly.…”