时间：2022-06-01 10:06:36
Abstract: Currently the world is confronted with the challenge of population aging, under the situation of our national products' uneven supply and need, how could designers accurately target the market of the aging group and creatively design the "Grey Hair" products. The paper is aimed to study the special Kansei elements of certain customers within certain times by applying the ratiocination qualitatively and quantifiably, and eventually set up "A collection of Adjectives of Kansei Elements in the Innovative Design of Grey Hair Products".
Key words: "Grey Hair" Products; the Aging Group; Innovative Design; Kansei Engineering; Kansei Elements
1 Introduction
21st Century is the age of digitalized information as well as a Kansei age, and more of an age based on Kansei science. The Kansei engineering is aimed to design and develop products according to the feeling and needs of customers and clients, so it is a customer-oriented technology of products development that develops rapidly as [1] industrial production is approaching modern scientific technology and the general pursuit of emotion prevails at present.
The aging of population is one of the most important social problems and primary characteristics of human development in the new century. Under the trend, the traditional virtue of respecting and caring the old should be inherited, which is not only the needs of old people but also the embodiment of social civilization. Currently with the improvement of people's material life, the change of design is stimulated as elderly customers' needs of products are diversifying.
With the approaching reality of Chinese aging population, Chinese "Grey Hair" market will be in a large scale. However, the current domestic market fails to meet the requirements of the elderly due to the late development of our domestic "Grey Hair" industry, the small scale of current market, low development, scarcity of development and unique products for the elderly. The products specially provided for the old is lower than 10% of the current market quota in China, so there is far cry from the market needs and an uneven phenomenon in the ratio of supply and demand.
2 The Functions of Kansei Elements in the Innovative Design of "Grey Hair" Products
In modern society, products have been an important carrier for individuals to convey information of society, culture, economy, feelings and so like. "Grey Hair" products with Kansei elements are the satisfaction of emotion and the entrustment of heart. Under the circumstance of low development and uncertain uniqueness of "Grey Hair" products, how could we accurately target the market of the elderly and echo with elderly customers? The new task we are faced with is to control certain groups of customers' special Kansei elements within fixed time.
Designers should apply the "human-oriented" ideas in the innovative design of "Grey Hair" products and reinterpret it, which means that the design could be more humanized by transforming the focus on products to the users. It demands that designers unleash imagination by referring to technology and communicating with the elderly customers. Simply speaking, innovative designs with Kansei elements will be one of the standards for old people in the new century to pursue successful products, which actually reflects the original purposes of innovative design of "Grey Hair" products.
3 A Study on Kansei Elements of the Elderly Demand
Qualitative ratiocination is classified according to the purposes of design and usage in the Kansei engineering. The Kansei engineering of antecedent qualitative ratiocination gradually transforms material anticipation to elements of design. Thus the Kansei elements of the elderly including the Kansei elements of physiological needs, psychological needs and aesthetic needs can be analyzed by applying qualitative ratiocination to classify groups of the old and their anticipation of products.
3.1 The Kansei Elements of Physical Needs
3.1.1 The Needs of Sensory Functions
The needs of sensory needs mentioned here are not only the five-sense functional needs, but also the functional needs of five-sense feeling namely Kansei five senses with emotion. The sensory functions of the old are special so they tend to desperately need sensory functions. When they try these products, the sensory characteristics of these products are to be experienced with eyes, ears and nose. Therefore the Kansei sense on the level of the general sense is the most straight-forward. So "Grey Hair" products should please the customers' senses and adapt to Kansei characteristics of the elderly sensory functions. [2]
3.1.2 The Needs of Organic Functions
Due to the characteristics of the physical system and neural system of the elderly, "Grey hair" products should be safe and reliable, easily caught and operated. For example, the design of handheld products should take the reduction of sharp and pointed edges into account. On one hand, the round and smooth sides should be adopted to avoid the hurt caused by frictions and clashes; one the other hand, the double-handle form could be adopted to relieve the pressure upon hands. In addition, the functions of products could be achieved in the easiest way by adding reminding functions with different colors and forms.
3.2 The Kansei Elements of Psychological Needs
3.2.1 The Needs Triggered by Cognitive Psychology
The majority of old people's memory will gradually decline as they are getting older. They are conservative and isolated from new knowledge and stuff. Due to their gradually declining memory, they tend to forget what they have just learnt or mastered. For instance, the elderly flinch before the complex instructions and operating system. So the design of their products should take the forms into consideration, thus the operation methods could be made clear by the forms of products, that is to say the forms of products are the real and lively instruction, which helps the elderly out of inconvenient operation and makes them pleased and confident.
3.2.2 The Needs Triggered by Mood and Interest
The elderly long for kinships, cares, concerns, acknowledgement and respect of others, in addition they are eager for the cares and concerns of society, psychological comfort and spiritual support. [3]Old people are able to feel the forms of products directly. When using the products, old people could relieve their psychological pressure and improve unstable mood through the straight-forward Kansei forms. The products with Kansei design create a healthy and pleasant atmosphere for the elderly to enable them to feel that it is never too old to enjoy their wonderful life.
3.3 The Kansei Elements of Aesthetic Needs
Although aged, people's pursuit of beauty will never decline. But they have their unique aesthetic views, which require products to cater to their aesthetic psychology and needs. In the materialized age, the quantity and price are no longer the key elements in the market of the elderly. The aesthetic psychology appears to be especially open as the societal environment changes. They generally have good aesthetic psychological elements and active and healthy aesthetic views. [4] The old people’s aesthetic demands for the forms of products are multi-level and their characteristics are as follows:
Beauty of Amenity: the beauty of amenity is old people’s strongest aesthetic demand for products. The products' beauty of amenity is embodied in the perfect experience of its functions.
Visual Beauty: the visual beauty is judged through the eyes of the elderly and they have their own unique standards to judge visual beauty.
Spiritual Beauty: old people also need the products they use to be granted spiritual connotation and noble quality so as to show their intrinsic value.
If given the Kansei elements of aesthetic needs, products would not only enable the elderly to feel the beauty, but also acquire the essence of beauty.
4 The Study on Kansei Elements of Products’ Forms
The design of products’ forms essentially belongs to the range of Kansei design. It will translate users’ Kansei cognition of products into the products’ elements of design. [5] (Fig. 1 shows an example).
The products’ images as the first element of delivering the information of products provide the most straight-forward information. The design of “Grey Hair” products should accurately master the general psychological and emotional needs of old people and apply it in the real design to make the images of products instructive and pertinent. Thus the emotional experience of the products is achieved. The Kansei characteristics embodied in products’ images is the Kansei elements we are looking for. [6]
4.1 The Kansei Elements of Forms
No matter how complex is the forms of natural objects or artificial ones, they could be abstractly classified into point, line, plane and cube. Through the presence of forms, the semantic information like functions, usages, characteristics could thus be delivered to users. The engagement of people enables the forms without any emotions in the sense of geometrical significance to express different personalities and abundant connotations. So we are able to figure out images of formal design by studying the point, line, plane and cube and the semantic conveyance of products’ forms.
The appearance of products provides the key clues of correct operation------knowledge is not only stored in people's mind, but also in the objective world. [7]Designers need to transpose the practical needs and Kansei needs of old people to the forms of products, which enables the products' forms to embody abundant Kansei characteristics on precondition that the functional needs are fulfilled so as to convey the humanity of products.
4.2 The Kansei Elements of Colors
The property of colors can be cognized directly and have a profound impact on people's visual feelings and mood. The colors of products reconcile people's psychology and the impact on people's psychology meanwhile bring people different feelings through comparisons between different hues, lightness, fineness of colors.
In order to win the preference of the elderly, the hues of products should be more emotional and personalized. Some old people are sensitive to their age and are afraid of diseases and death. In terms of this group of consumers, we should try to avoid touching the issue in the design. We could stimulate people's vision with colors and bring users associations with hues. Peak green like new sprout and red representing passion and life help people acquire substantial, passionate and outgoing feeling so that spiritual comfort and new-born life are acquired.
4.3 The Kansei Elements of Material Quality
The material quality of products include: the materials and textures of products, among which materials are objective while texture is the comprehensive embodiment of the subjective and the objective. In general, the more closed the stuff is to people, the more intimate people will feel and the easier people's Kansei needs are fulfilled. Therefore designs adopting Kansei materials are effective to promote Kansei experience.
In terms of the elderly, we should multi-divisionally stimulate senses including vision, hearing and touching making it a synthetic of material hardware and Kansei life, so the high quality and pleasure brought by products could be experienced by the elderly.
5 The Quantification of Kansei Elements in the Innovative Design of "Grey Hair" Products
The main purpose of mathematic model built by Kansei engineering is to find out the quantified relationship between elements of products' design and Kansei information and finally serve the customers. Quantitative analysis is to quantify the relationship between Kansei information and elements of design and further explain the interactive relations with specific numbers or logos. The main problems that the quantification could solve are the picture as follows. (Fig. 2 shows an example)
The Kansei engineering of antecedent qualitative ratiocination depicts Kansei objects with images space composed of adjectives. [8]We could start from "products" and "users", by utilizing the Kansei engineering of antecedent qualitative ratiocination and building "Adjectives of Emotional Expressions" and "Adjectives of Conformational Intentions" to quantify Kansei Elements of "Grey Hair" products, the elements of innovative design and Kansei elements of the elderly could combine and interact with each other, eventually "Adjectives of Kansei Elements in the Innovative Design of "Grey Hair" Products".
6 Conclusions
The thesis is composed based on the current population aging in China and uneven supply and demand of "Grey Hair" industry in order to utilize the theories of Kansei engineering to study Kansei elements in the innovative design of "Grey Hair" products, thus eventually build a collection of adjectives concerning Kansei elements in the innovative design of "Grey Hair" products to help designers and enterprises develop "Grey Hair" products and provide references for image model bases of forms of "Grey Hair" products' design, which is an important direction of innovative design and study of "Grey Hair" products. "Grey Hair" products that we design according to the needs of the elderly have a very bright prospect as it is conducive to society. Therefore we should have a good knowledge of the "Grey Hair" market, improve the "Grey Hair" design and enhance the quality of "Grey Hair" products so as to improve the life quality of the elderly.
References
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