The aesthetic pleasure in design scale

The development of a scale to measure aesthetic pleasure for designed artifacts

Journal article (2017)

Authors

J. Blijlevens Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University
P.P.M. Hekkert Design Aesthetics - IDE
Clementine Thurgood University of Technology Sydney
Lin-Lin Chen Eindhoven University of Technology
T.W. Allen Whitfield Swinburne University of Technology
Research Group
Design Aesthetics (IDE) (TU Delft)
Design Scale development Aesthetic pleasure Determinants of aesthetic pleasure
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Published Date

2017

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Department

Human-Centered Design

Research Group

Design Aesthetics

Abstract

There is a lack of consistency regarding the scales used to measure aesthetic pleasure within design. They are often chosen ad hoc or adopted from other research fields without being validated for designed artifacts. Moreover, many scales do not measure aesthetic pleasure in isolation, but instead include its determinants (e.g., novelty). Therefore, we developed a new scale to measure aesthetic pleasure and included scales to measure its known determinants for discriminant validity purposes, which automatically led to validating these determinants as well. In the exploratory phase, we identified highly reliable items representative of aesthetic pleasure and its determinants across product categories. In the validation phase, we confirmed these findings across different countries (Australia, the Netherlands, and Taiwan). The final scale consists of 5 items, "beautiful," "attractive," "pleasing to see," "nice to see," and "like to look at," that together reliably capture the construct of aesthetic pleasure. Several recommendations are formulated regarding the application of this scale in design studies and beyond.