Abstract
In recent years, countries worldwide have been attempting to use their culture as a feature in increasing the value of creative design for developing an aesthetic economy. The interface of product aesthetics gives people a sense of beauty and impression and encourages people to consume and collect. Therefore, successful products should conform to the 5 factors of qualia: attractiveness, beauty, creativity, delicacy, and engineering. We chose cultural products from the cultural creative awards in Taiwan to be the stimulus samples to investigate the participants’ psychological feelings. The purpose of this study was to discover the correspondence between product textures and consumers’ feelings, and to generate specific guidelines for design in the future. The findings are listed as follows: (a) Qualia characteristics should be considered in the market demand of cultural products. (b) The performance of the creativity and engineering characteristics of qualia should be emphasized. (c) From the perspective of cultural product preference, winning entries are more popular than non-winning entries. The guidelines developed in this study support the future development and growth of an aesthetic economy.
Keywords
Cultural Product; Qualia; Aesthetic Economy
Citation
Yen, H., Lin, P., and Lin, R. (2014) A Study of Cultural Products and the Characteristics of Qualia, in Lim, Y., Niedderer, K., Redström, J., Stolterman, E. and Valtonen, A. (eds.), Design's Big Debates - DRS International Conference 2014, 16-19 June, Umeå, Sweden. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2014/researchpapers/35
A Study of Cultural Products and the Characteristics of Qualia
In recent years, countries worldwide have been attempting to use their culture as a feature in increasing the value of creative design for developing an aesthetic economy. The interface of product aesthetics gives people a sense of beauty and impression and encourages people to consume and collect. Therefore, successful products should conform to the 5 factors of qualia: attractiveness, beauty, creativity, delicacy, and engineering. We chose cultural products from the cultural creative awards in Taiwan to be the stimulus samples to investigate the participants’ psychological feelings. The purpose of this study was to discover the correspondence between product textures and consumers’ feelings, and to generate specific guidelines for design in the future. The findings are listed as follows: (a) Qualia characteristics should be considered in the market demand of cultural products. (b) The performance of the creativity and engineering characteristics of qualia should be emphasized. (c) From the perspective of cultural product preference, winning entries are more popular than non-winning entries. The guidelines developed in this study support the future development and growth of an aesthetic economy.