Misako Yamagishi

Clarification of Kansei Elements of Attractiveness Related to Usability for Long Term Mobile Phone Users

Recently, in the IT products area, it has become difficult to distinguish among products by function. Usability is one of the most important user requirements for products. And we assume that the other important factor related to distinctiveness among products is Kansei (human sensibility). One of the elements for usability from the viewpoint of Kansei is attractiveness. IT product manufacturers need to consider the user’s Kansei when developing products. By clarifying the mechanism involved in Kansei and by developing a quantitative Kansei element evaluation method, we will be able to develop attractive IT products continuously. We targeted long term users, and we ran a subjective evaluation experiment for attractiveness related to usability including a questionnaire concerning the factors that influenced the judgment of the evaluation and we clarified some of the elements of human interface that influenced Kansei elements of attractiveness related to usability. The results indicate that when people use mobile phones considering accessibility to some function, they feel “kinetic”, “dynamic”, and “refreshing” and when they use mobile phones considering errors when sending an e-mail or making a call, they feel “three dimensional”, “impressive”, “surprising”, “epoch-making”, and “natural” and want to use them. The results also indicate that when they use mobile phones considering ease of inputting text, they feel “good operability”, “hard to make an error”, “controllable as one likes”, “stress-free”, and “want to keep using”.

Comparisons on Kansei Factors of Attractiveness between Initial and Long Term Use of Mobile Phone

Many information devices have high performance and functionality by the progress of information and technology and have made lives of people more convenient. Although high functionality is a cause of the attractiveness, it is difficult to satisfy the user only by this. Therefore, the purpose on this research was the comparisons on Kansei factors of attractiveness between initial and long term use of mobile phone. As the results, the four factors which are operability factor, motivation factor, familiarity factor, and accuracy factor were extracted as elements of the attractiveness on initial use. Moreover, the two factors, activeness factor and affinity factor were extracted as elements of the attractiveness on long term use. Therefore, it was suggested that the criteria which evaluate the products change as follows. It evaluates to the detail on initial use, and it evaluates it through the whole on long term use.

Proposal for Indices to Assess Attractiveness on Initial Use of Mobile Phones

It is necessary to determine the attractiveness level of using mobile phone to ensure user satisfaction. This study measured physiological indices of attractiveness during participants’ initial use of a mobile phone. As physiological indices which concern autonomic nervous system activity, nasal skin temperature, pupil diameter, electroencephalography, blinking, and electrocardiography are listed. These indices were selected because preceding studies have suggested “safety and relaxing” and “feelings induced by desire and interest” as factors related to the attractiveness of mobile phones. The results obtained in these experiments that a device’s attractiveness to users can be evaluated using physiological indices. Thus, the present study showed basic perspectives related to attractiveness from the point of physiological response.