A psychometric investigation of a scale for the evaluation of the aesthetic element in consumer durable goods.

A psychometric scale to measure consumer perceptions of the aesthetic dimensions of consumer durable goods is developed in this dissertation. The scale contributes an approach to measuring how a consumer durable is perceived along various aesthetic dimensions of judgment, an approach to comparing alternative product designs along these dimensions, and a basis for segmenting markets based on consumer responses to aesthetic criteria. The scale development process followed here established the feasibility of a psychometric approach to measuring the perception and evaluation of the aesthetic qualities in the case of common consumer durables. Although there was evidence of reliability problems, the scale generally performed satisfactorily in terms of unidimensionality and discriminant validity. Further, it offered satisfactory discrimination among products that were a priori judged to be of different aesthetic quality. This scale represents an initial effort to calibrate consumption stimuli in terms of qualities apart from those that contribute to their functional value. It provides a way to go beyond uncalibrated consumer utterances and to circumvent the problems surrounding the comprehension of obtuse jargon used in the design literature. Although the present effort focused on consumer durables, the role of aesthetic qualities in core product design, primary and secondary packaging, and in promotional augmentation extends beyond the product categories studied