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Are Kawaii Products Valuable to Chinese Customers?

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Advances in Affective and Pleasurable Design (AHFE 2017)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 585))

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Abstract

This research studied how Chinese people perceived Kawaii, which was originally an important Kansei value in Japanese culture. An experiment was conducted among 30 young and 30 elder participants, including half male and half female. Three types of artificial products including spoons, blood pressure monitors and robots, with four designs for each product, were presented to the participants. Heart rate, heart rate variation and skin conductance were measured, and a followed up interview was conducted to collect participants’ opinions towards the products. The results show that although most Chinese people know Kawaii, but the role of Kawaii in how much they like a product is not decisive. Compared to Kawaii, practicability and functionality are more valued by Chinese people.

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References

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a National Natural Science Foundation China grant 71661167006.

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Correspondence to Pei-Luen Patrick Rau .

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Patrick Rau, PL., Qie, N., Tung, CW. (2018). Are Kawaii Products Valuable to Chinese Customers?. In: Chung, W., Shin, C. (eds) Advances in Affective and Pleasurable Design. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 585. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60495-4_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60495-4_28

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60494-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60495-4

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