Kansei Information Processes in Early Design: Design Cognition and Computation - Emotional Engineering - page 60

4 Structure and Content of Kansei Information

4.1 Structure of Kansei Information

Design information can be structured according to its abstraction level. We gathered
lexical data from professional designers during research projects [ 2 , 20 , 33 ]. We
structured this information from the most abstract level (values, semantic descrip-
tors, analogies, styles) until the most concrete (color, texture, shape). From these
studies, a kansei ontology has been de ! ned. Kansei information encompasses
principally semantic descriptors, object names, values, and low-level descriptors.
All content and structure of kansei information is presented Table 1 . This infor-
mation is representative of the whole corpus of information the designers deal with.
The table also shows the correspondence of the different types of information.
Harmony rules may be applied to low-level information (color harmonies, color-
from harmonies), but also concern the relation between high-level and low-level
dimensions. A codi ! cation of the type of information has been established in

Table 1 Coding of kansei information [ 1 , 2 , 20 ]
Level Categories Code Description Examples

High
level
(H)

Values Hv Final or behavioral values Security, well-being,

freedom, ethics

Semantic
adjectives

Hs Most of these adjectives are

related to color, shape, and
texture

Romantic, aggres-
sive, muscled, fl fluid,
robust, balanced

Emotions He Emotions as effects of design

stimuli

Amused, enthusias-
tic, Ill at ease

Analogies Ha Objects, entities from other sec-

tors from which some design
elements are transferred into the
reference sector by similarity

Rabbit → quick, fast

Style Hy Characteristics of every levels

through a speci ! c style

Edge design, work
wear

Middle
level
(M)

Sector
names

Ms Object names describing a sec-

tor or a subsector representing a
speci ! c trend

Sport devices, auto-
motive design, inter-
action design,
cosmetics

Context Mc Moment, place, activity Family leisure

Function Mf Function, usage, component Modularity

Low
level
(L)

Color Lc Color properties Yellow, light blue,

pale indigo

Shape Lf Shape combinations, size Square, corrugated,

geometric, tight lines

Texture Lt Motifs (abstract, ! figurative) and

texture

Plastic, metallic