Product emotional design method based on image metaphor: a technical note

Similar to product design of function and quality, product emotional appeal becomes a more and more important factor influencing consumer purchases. This paper proposes a two-step method for product emotional elements reasoning based on image metaphor. It aims to solve the depth deficits and boundary constraints of traditional methods. Firstly, based on image metaphor and guided interview, the emotional needs of consumers for products are initially extracted. Secondly, tacit emotional needs are transformed into explicit design elements by using a three-level image metaphor decoding method of symbolic-index-perceptual. The effectiveness of the proposed method is implemented and verified by taking the emotional design of electric vehicle as an example. The results could be a reference for electric vehicle development. The findings suggest that image metaphor could be one of the ideal ways to reduce the deviation between designers' goals and users' emotional needs, and the proposed method can provide more innovative support for designers and engineers.