Elements of design that affect aesthetic evaluation
Point-of-Purchase (POP) displays are effective tools for increasing sales of a product. However, Consumer Psychology and marketing literature contains little theoretical development in the area of POP-displays and its communicative effects. Consequently the aim of this thesis was to explore the phenomenon of POP-displays with the objective of providing a foundation for a conceptual framework that shows how humans respond to and evaluate certain in-store stimuli. The sort of questions - addressed by this research refers in particular to how elements of design affect aesthetic evaluations of POP-displays and how this in turn may affect dwell time, product contact and purchase probability. The influence of design elements upon aesthetic evaluation is of particular interest to designers as research has shown that people no longer buy products for their functionality but for their physical attributes which make the product meaningful. The outcome of the studies conducted, showed that design elements such as colour and shape can be used to capture consumers' attention and be used to construct perceptual concepts such as 'complexity' and 'clarity', which in turn affects the overall visual evaluation of a display. It was also found that design principles such as unity and focal point can be utilised to increase the overall aesthetic evaluation. Moreover aesthetic evaluation was found to be affected by haptic properties as well as visual evaluation. Depending on the textures used the overall aesthetic evaluation is sometimes more influenced by haptic properties than visual evaluation. Furthermore it was found that dwell time can be influenced by whether the display is perceived to be 'mysterious', 'complex' or'interesting, as well as the textures used on a product.
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