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Testing products during the design process can help design teams anticipate user needs and predict a positive emotional response. Emerging technologies, e.g., Virtual Reality (VR), allow designers to test products in a more sophisticated manner alongside traditional approaches like sketches, photographs or physical prototypes. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted to evaluate the feasibility of seven visualization techniques for product assessment within the framework of emotional design, suggesting that the user's perception depends on the visualization technique used to present the product. This research provides recommendations for product evaluation using physical, virtual, or conceptual prototypes to analyze the user's emotional response throughout 19 parameters. Our results indicate that the use of virtual environments, including VR and VR with Passive Haptics (VRPH), can facilitate user participation in the design process, although these visualization techniques may also exaggerate the emotions perceived by users. In this context, VRPH tends to overstate the tactile perception of the product. Additionally, our results reveal that both virtual and conceptual environments can amplify a user's likelihood to purchase a product. However, the latter setting could also potentially lead to confusion among users in regards to their perception of the product's weight, dimensions, and cost. Based on these findings, the authors encourage industrial designers to develop new methodologies to optimize design process and minimize costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability and affordability of consumer virtual reality (VR) devices have fueled their adoption during the product design process. High fidelity virtual prototypes can be created more quickly and are more cost-effective than using traditional methods, but certain product features are still difficult to evaluate, resulting in perceptual differences when a product is assessed using different visualization techniques. In this paper, we report two case studies in which a group of participants evaluated different designs of a product typology (i.e., a watering can) as presented in VR, VR with passive haptics (VRPH) and in a real setting (R) for the first case study, and VR and R for the second case study. The semantic differential technique was used for product evaluation, and an inferential statistical method using aligned rank transform (ART) proceedings was applied to determine perceptual differences between groups. Our results showed that product characteristics assessed by touch are the most susceptible to being affected by the environment, while the user background can have an effect in some product features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for increasing the likelihood of product success. Virtual Reality head-mounted displays incorporating physiological techniques such as eye-tracking offer novel opportunities to study user behavior in decision-making tasks. These methods reveal unconscious or undisclosed consumer responses. Yet, research into gaze patterns during virtual product evaluations remains scarce. In this context, an experiment was conducted to investigate users' gaze behavior when evaluating their preferences for 64 virtual prototypes of a bedside table. Here, 24 participants evaluated and selected their preferred design through eight repeated tasks of an 8-AFC, with individual evaluations conducted for each design to ensure the reliability of the findings. Several eye-tracking metrics were computed (i.e., gaze time, visits, and time to first gaze), statistical tests were applied, and a Long Short-Term Memory model was created to recognize decisions based on attentional patterns. Our results revealed that the Gaze Cascade Model was replicated in virtual environments and that a correlation between product liking and eye-tracking metrics exists. We recognize subjects' decisions with a 90% accuracy, based on their eye patterns during the three seconds before their decision. The results suggest that eye-tracking can be an effective tool for decision-making prediction during product assessment in virtual environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product evaluation throughout the design process is a fundamental task for product success, which also helps to reduce design-related costs. Physical prototyping is a common method to assess design alternatives, but often requires significant amounts of time and money. Extended reality (XR) technologies are changing how products are presented to the user, making virtual prototyping an effective tool for product evaluation. However, it is generally assumed that our perceptual and emotional responses to a product viewed in an XR modality are comparable to those elicited by the physical product. This paper reports the results of a study where a group of participants evaluated three designs of a product (i.e., umbrella stands) when viewed in a real setting, virtual reality (VR), and VR with passive haptics. Our goal was to observe the influence of visual media in product perception, and how the use of a complementary item (i.e., a physical umbrella) for interaction as well as user design expertise influence product assessment. Results show that the Jordan's psycho-pleasure category of assessment was the most affected by the presentation medium, whereas the ideo-pleasure category was the only category not influenced by the medium. We also highlight that the use of VR with passive haptics could be an effective tool for product evaluation, as illustrated by the study of umbrella stands and young consumers. Our study also shows that the user's background does not influence the level of confidence in their responses, but it can influence the assessment of certain product features. Finally, the use of a complementary item for interaction may have a significant effect on product perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]