Kansei Engineering

Design
Raja Ariffin Raja Ghazilla
 Kansei, Japanese word form by the kanji

Kansei Engineering
Kan and Sei which mean sensibility or
sensitivity.
‘Kansei is an individual’s subjective
impression from a certain artefact,
environment or situation using all the senses
of sight, hearing, feeling, smell, taste [and
the sense of balance (annotation by the
author)] as well as recognition’ (Nagamachi,
200Similar to Affective Engineering.
Introduce by Nagamichi 1970s but has its
roots from Germany since 1800s.
Why Kansei?
• In 1980s during boom in mass consumer product,
aesthetic was key elements in product quality but was
not dealt with
• In general products are expected to be of high quality.
However, they are also supposed to express high quality
by their design and communicate this to the customers.
• Eventually many customers make their final decision
unconsciously based on rather subjective factors. They
purchase the product, which ‘feels’ better, and are often
unable to explain why. Taking this ‘feeling’ into account
already in the design process can give a substantial
selling advantage (Söderlund, 2003).
Other Kansei
• Emotional Engineering

• Affective Design

• Affective Engineering

• Affective Ergonomics

• Design for experience

• Pleasure with products

• Design of metaqualities

• Design for human senses

• Kansei Engineering

• Sensorial Engineering
Kansei Concept – The Psychology of
Product Design
• According to Nagamachi
(2001) there are three
focal points of Kansei
Engineering:
• How to accurately
understand
Kansei
customer Kansei
• How to reflect and Engineering
translate
understanding
Kansei
into
Framework
product design
• How to create a system
and organisation for
Kansei orientated design
Type of Kansei • Kansei Engineering Type I- Category
Classification:In Kansei Engineering Type I, a
Engineering product strategy and a market segment is
Systems identified and developed into a tree structure
identifying the customer’s affective needs. These
affective needs or Kansei's are then connected
manually to product properties.

• Kansei Engineering Type II- Kansei Engineering

System:Kansei Engineering Type II is often a
computer aided system using interference engines
and Kansei databases (Nagamachi, 2001). The
connections between Kansei and product
properties are made using mathematical
statistical tools.

• Kansei Engineering Type III- Hybrid Kansei

Engineering System : like the second type.
However, it can not only suggest suitable product
properties from an intended Kansei, but also
predict the Kansei that product properties elicit,
e.g. a using prototype or mock-up.
Type of Kansei
Engineering • Kansei Engineering Type IV- Kansei
Engineering Modelling: The fourth type of
Systems Kansei Engineering focuses on building
mathematical prediction models. These
models are more strongly validated as in the
Types II and III.
• Kansei Engineering Type V- Virtual Kansei
Engineering: Kansei Engineering Type V
integrates Virtual Reality (VR) techniques
with standard data collection systems. This
type replaces the presentation of real
products with VR representations.
• Kansei Engineering Type VI- Collaborative
Kansei Engineering Designing: In Kansei
Engineering Type VI, the Kansei database is
accessible via Internet. Such design supports
group work and concurrent engineering.
 Kansei
• Use 5 senses to deduce feelings,
emotions and intuition – vision – Quantifies
relationships
hearing – smell – taste – touch

• When a person’s senses are

triggered, psychological cognition
that involves perception, between the
judgment and memory will
become apparent to a person. Senses and
Cognition
Kansei Design Model
L1: Synthesizing the Specimen
• PI is applicable for existing product to improvise the design,
 The procedure begins with a collection of samples with visible differences
from existing products in the market within a specific domain.
 Determination of the number of design elements depends on the level of
detail that needs to be included in one study.
 classification of design elements. The identified design elements are
further classified into item and category. Item is the type of common
physical traits of all specimens such as background color, body shape, and
text alignment. Category is the specific attribute of the item in each
specimen, such as red as a background color of specimen A, and blue as a
background color of specimen B

• PII, to design a new concept of a product based on their objectives. In

this case,
 designers specifications based on their inspiration in relation to the target
concept. synthesizing words related to the concept within the domain.
 determine design elements that have a connection with an elegant feeling,
classify the physical traits, and build a number of prototypes based on the
technical specification
L2: Establishment of Kansei
Checklist
• Preparation and establishment of Kansei checklist. The level is
divided into three steps: (1) synthesizing Kansei words, (2) selection
of domain-specific Kansei words, and (3) development of checklist.
• The level synthesizes Kansei words, from a larger number of possible
Kansei words to focused Kansei words that highly related to the
product domain. Kansei words can be adjectives, such as calm,
sophisticated, and natural, or nouns.
• These Kansei words can be synthesized from pertinent literature,
technical magazines, or even consulting experts.
• Finally, utilizing the Kansei words, L2 produces a Kansei checklist in
the form of the semantic differentials (SD) scale as a measurement
tool for Kansei measurement in the next level.
Kansei Words
 L3: Determination of Kansei
Concept and Requirement
• Determination of the Kansei concept and requirement.
This level is divided into two steps: (1) Kansei
measurement, and (2) requirement analysis.
• Kansei measurement is performed using expert or
ordinary consumers as test subjects. The subjects are
required to rate their impressions toward product
specimen on the Kansei checklist.
• Results from the evaluation will be analyzed to interpret
links between subjects’ Kansei and design elements
identified in L1. The outcome can be used to determine
design requirements for the development of the Kansei
product.
L4: Prototyping/Testing
• Prototyping/testing. In this final level, the results from
L3 will be used as the foundation to build a prototype of
the Kansei product.
• The process will involve the employment of the Kansei
concept and design requirements identified in L3.
• To develop a successful Kansei product, experts’ creativity
should be included in the design process.
• Testing may be performed to validate the design
requirements.
Statistical Methods in Kansei
Engineering Design
- Cluster analysis can be used to
reduce the initial semantic space
(the initial set of Kansei words) into
a more manageable set of responses.
- Regression models are used to link
the space of properties (the factors)
and the semantic space (the
responses) in the synthesis phase.
- Factorial designs are used when
spanning the space of properties for
choosing the set of products to be
rated by participants in the data
collection.
- Principal component analysis can
be used to locate Kansei words (the
responses) on a scatterplot with the
first principal components, so
showing which responses are
perceived as similar.
 How to Implement Kansei?
• Choosing the product domain: The product domain is defined. This means not
only choosing the product that will be the protagonist of the study, but also the
target group for the product. For example, the product domain could be analogue
watches to be used by middle aged women.
• Spanning the semantic space: Words that emotionally describe the product
(called Kansei words) are collected from different sources. The initial set of words is
reduced either using affinity diagrams or multivariate techniques such as cluster
analysis. The output from this step is a list with all the Kansei words that will be
used in the study. Examples of Kansei words for the watches could be modern,
elegant, comfortable...
• Spanning the space of product properties: Design attributes from the studied
product are collected. For each attribute, several possible values are considered.
Attributes that designers think can have an effect on the emotional response are
prioritized. Attributes in the example of the watches could be face color (white or
brown) or face shape (rectangular or round).
 How to Implement Kansei?
• A set of products (either real working products or prototypes) is prepared to be shown to participants in
the study. The output from this step is the collection of products for the KE study (these products must
differ in the properties just selected). In the example of the watches, four watches could be used: a
rectangular watch with a white face, a rectangular watch with a brown face, a round watch with a white
face and a round watch with a brown face.

• Notice that design attributes used can be considered factors (with two or more levels) in a factorial
design. The set of products to be shown to participants in the study can then be selected following the
design matrix of a factorial design.

• Synthesis: Using statistical methods (usually linear regression models, sometimes ordinal logistic
regression models), a link between product attributes (space of properties, the factors in a factorial
design) and Kansei words (semantic space, the responses of the factorial design) is established. For every
Kansei word, product properties are found that affect the Kansei word. In the watches example,
one conclusion could be that watches with a rectangular face are perceived as elegant.

• Test of validity: Principal component analysis is used to locate the Kansei words on the first principal
components. This gives an idea of which words are perceived similarly, and can be the basis for some
confirmatory experiments.

• Model building: After being validated, several final models are proposed that relate the product
properties with each Kansei word.
Asynchronous Exercise
• The next following slide will show various design of smartphone.

• Conduct a simple survey among your family and friends and determine
the kansei word that can attributed to the design

• Use the following steps

• 1. Identify several words that can describe the affective/kansei words for a
smartphone design. (atleast 5 words)

• 2. Create a semantic differentials of the kansei word you have listed above
using 5 point likert scale eg as follows
 Ugly 1 2 3 4 5 Beautiful

• 3. conduct a simple survey using the semantic differentials of the kansei word

• 4. do a simple statistical analysis to determine which kansei word best describe

the different design
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus Response