Smith, Hunter

The outward appearance of a product and product
design form underlies successful innovation. Design
form creates initial impressions impacting buyer
judgments. Prototypical designs provide assurance
and familiarity. High-designs signal superior quality,
exclusiveness, and prestige. Continued high
performance gives authentic designs the real deal
reputation. Results contributed to product design
literature by revealing buyer’s initial impressions of
prototypical, authentic, and high-design forms, the independent
variables. The dependent variables were
functionality, ergonomics, hedonism, self-expression,
authenticity, and information search. Plan of
action included a convince sample of 60 millennials,
personal distribution/ collection, manipulation check,
and questionnaire pretest. Methods included secondary,
survey, and experimental research. Ethical
practice conformed to APA style, and consent forms.
Reliability/validity was heightened by items borrowed
from scholarly journals. Key findings: 1) high-design
scored highest on self-expression, hedonism, and
information search but lowest on ease of use; 2) prototypical
design posed the greatest injury hazard; 3)
Authentic design signaled highest functionality.

Product design, a product’s outward appearance, associates
with successful innovation when the design
triggers buyers to develop positive impressions. The
project assessed impressions of forty respondents
to four distinctive hoverboard designs: 1) a prototypical
design, 2) an ornate design, 3) an atypical design,
and 4) a radical design. The original research
extended extant research into design impressions of
functionality, aesthetics, and symbolism to add an assessment
of ergonomic impressions. The systematic
research method entailed a literature review, qualitative
research, manipulation check, questionnaire
pretest, convenience sample, and Chi-Square method
enabling inferences with 90% confidence. A consent
form and adherence to FAU’s academic integrity
provided an ethical foundation. Results suggest that designers of hoverboards conform to the prototypical
design to increase positive functional impressions,
avoid ornate designs, and consider buyers’ skill level
and self-expression when developing atypical designs
due to respondents’ negative impressions of
safety risks and ability to control a hoverboard.