Relevancy of bipolar word pairs across product categories: comparative study between automobiles and the iphone

Date

2010

Author

Köprülü, Seçil

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This thesis investigates human product interaction with a focus on the physical experience provided by products. The differences of users' perceptions are discussed according to the differences of bodily experiences served by products. The interaction with products is taken as a holistic experience phenomenon, and in order to assess users' understandings and evaluations about the experience with products; perceived pragmatic qualities, perceived hedonic qualities and elicited emotional reactions are analyzed. The research is conducted by means of surveys in order to compare users' perceptual differences in relation to two different product groups: automobiles and the iPhone, which differ in content of interaction, namely one serves a more physical (bodily) experience while the other a more virtual one. In order to find out the perceptual differences, verbal descriptions of perceived qualities and emotional states are used as measurement tools. A list consisting of bipolar word pairs in relation with pragmatic qualities, hedonic qualities and emotional reactions has been composed, and perceptual differences are investigated through the bipolar word pairs' relevancy levels according to the product. In addition, in order to show that meaning associations related to the same verbal description are context dependent, the meanings that are associated with the same word pairs for both products are investigated. Apparent differences between the relevant word pairs of the two different product groups have been observed, in addition with pragmatic qualities' higher relevancy scores compared to hedonic qualities and emotional reactions in defining users' interactions with products.

Subject Keywords

Design and technology., Information technology.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12612828/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/20215

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis