The influence of unity-in-variety on aesthetic appreciation of car interiors

The influence of unity-in-variety on aesthetic appreciation of car interiors

Post, R.A.G.
Blijlevens, J.
Hekkert, P.P.M.

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

2013-08-26

Product designers can use a wide range of design principles to influence the appearance of new product designs. One of these principles, ‘unity-in-variety’, states that product designs combining a maximum of unity or order with as much variety as possible are the most aesthetically pleasing. Even though designers are thought to intuitively use the principle of unity-in-variety during the design process, it has never been empirically assessed whether they, similar to lay-men, also positively appreciate product designs that adhere to this principle. We show that for automotive design students both unity and variety can simultaneously and independently positively influence aesthetic appreciation of car interior designs. Furthermore, automotive design students attribute much more of the aesthetic appreciation of car interiors to unity, than they do to variety. We suggest that this difference arises because they are trained to attach more weight to the unifying aspects of a car interior design.

aesthetics
product design
unity
variety
design principles

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c75ea8d3-4665-44ce-bef9-c8b8692984d3

IASDR 2013: Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research "Consilience and Innovation in Design", Tokyo, Japan, 26-30 August 2013

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2013 The Author(s)