Evaluating appearance-related product prototypes with various facial characteristics

Design prototype evaluation is a key process in new product development. The characteristics of the product users are as important as the design features for products that might alter the appearances of these users. This paper proposes a product evaluation scheme that integrates design features and user facial characteristics in one evaluation process. We implement an experimental scheme to evaluate the design prototype of glasses frames. 3D scanning technology is applied to capture the facial features of users and reconstruct realistic 3D face models. Those allow us to post-process individual facial feature without changing the others. In the experiment, the subjects response on three affective measures related to personality attributes: confidence, friendliness, and attractiveness, signified by the faces wearing the factorized glasses frames. The results show that changing certain design features indeed influences the impressions of the faces with varied facial characteristics. The proposed scheme can be employed to facilitate the design of products related to personal appearance.© 2013 The Design Society.