JBR-08416; No of Pages 8

Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?

Minu Kumar a,, Charles H. Noble b,1
a
College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, United States
b
Department of Marketing and Logistics, The University of Tennessee, 310 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996-0530, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Product design is often the rst point of contact between the product and the buyer in retail aisles and search re-
Received 8 August 2012 sults on the Internet. Researchers and managers understand that product design is important in consumer and
Received in revised form 29 May 2015 buyer behavior, yet they may not clearly and fully grasp the broad values that product design creates for con-
Accepted 30 May 2015
sumers. Based on an extensive qualitative study that integrates previous value typologies, this research shows
Available online xxxx
that product design can create not only form and function related value but also a self-expressive dimension
Keywords:
(social and altruistic value) that is communicated through the design's holistic properties. After developing and
Consumer testing a reliable and valid scale for this value typology, this research demonstrates that consumers who have
Product design higher design acumen tend to perceive aspects of self-expressive value more than consumers with low design
Grounded theory development acumen. Finally, the implications for research and practice are considered here.
Value 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Design acumen

1. Introduction visceral response consumers often experience when encountering a

Product design and its inuence on buyer behavior have become a
signicant area of interest for both academics and practitioners in
business (e.g., Bloch, 1995; Nussbaum, 2004) including this journal
(e.g., Giese, Malkewitz, Orth, & Henderson, 2014; Rosa, Qualls, & Ruth,
2014) because it is often the rst point of contact between the buyer
and the rm through internet search results, advertisements, or on
retail aisles. Despite the increased interest and empirical evidence in
the eld that consumers value some designs more than others
(e.g., Landwehr, Labroo, & Herrmann, 2011; Luchs & Swan, 2011;
Norman, 2004; Orth & Malkewitz, 2008; Veryzer & Hutchinson, 1998),
little seems to be known about how buyers interpret product designs
and convert them into perceptions of value to apply in consumption
situations.
A value-based perspective is probably one of the most pervasive
views on what drives buyer decision-making and has traditionally
been conceptualized as a highly cognitive evaluation of equity in an
exchange (Bolton & Drew, 1991). This way of understanding value
perceptions in relation to design may be particularly problematic be-
cause it does not include the kind of instantaneous, subconscious and
Acknowledgment: The researchers are grateful to the Marketing Science Institute
(MSI) for funding this project, and to the design services companies that participated in
the research. We are also thankful to the editor, associate editor and the anonymous
reviewers at Journal of Business Research for their developmental comments and
suggestions on this manuscript.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 415 4052852.
E-mail addresses: mkumar@sfsu.edu (M. Kumar), cnoble@utk.edu (C.H. Noble).
1
Tel.: +1 662 816 7853; fax: +1 865 974 1932.
well-designed product on a store shelf or web page (Kumar & Garg,
2010; Norman, 2004). In marketing, one perspective on product de-
sign has considered it in a disaggregated way, reecting in part a
conjoint-analysis-driven perspective on the functionality of product
designs (e.g., Giese et al., 2014; Green & Srinivasan, 1978; Shocker &
Srinivasan, 1979) or, alternatively, design has been equated to prod-
uct form, focusing on its esthetic characteristics. This approach has
generally found that these attributes are related to hedonic value
(e.g., Hirschman & Holbrook, 1980; Veryzer & Hutchinson, 1998).
While this largely attribute-based perspective on design is informa-
tive, it seems to offer an incomplete view of the value gained from
the more holistic design properties of, for example, a MacBook Air
computer, a Ferrari automobile, or similarly compelling products
(Luchs & Swan, 2011; Noble & Kumar, 2010). Given this gap in under-
standing product design in both its aggregated and disaggregated prop-
erties, studies that better explore the true nature and power of design
have been increasingly called for in the literature (Noble, 2011).
Given the need to better understand the interpretation of design
through a value-based lens, the primary questions that this research
addresses are: Why do consumers value product design when they rst in-
teract with it? What is the nature and potential dimensionality of product
design value to the consumer, and how can each dimension be measured?
Since prior research has not directly addressed these fundamental
questions about product design, the goal of this research will be to use
existing theory and combine it with empirical work to identify the na-
ture and dimensionality of consumer value for product design. Further,
we will develop measures for the dimensions, and test the usefulness of
the measure in the context of a marketing study. The results will show

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
0148-2963/ 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
2 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx
that the value consumers discern from product design is more complex
and diverse than merely form and function and that value discernment
depends on consumer characteristics too.
2. Theoretical perspectives on product design value
Prior literature has classied the value of product design as being
two-fold; form (hedonic) and function (utilitarian) based (Chitturi,
Raghunathan, & Mahajan, 2007, 2008; Hirschman & Holbrook, 1980).
This dichotomous classication of the value types appears limiting not
only because the domain and denition of product design encompasses
more than just form and function related issues (Luchs & Swan, 2011;
Noble & Kumar, 2010) but also because consumer value for products
in general is more diverse (Holbrook, 1999).
After an extensive historical review, Holbrook (1999) developed a
well-accepted typology that reconciles the different perspectives on
consumer value. Holbrook classied consumer value for a product,
which he dened as an interactive, relativistic preference experience,
along three continuous dimensions: (1) intrinsicextrinsic, (2) self ori-
entedother oriented, and (3) activereactive. These dimensions lead
into eight value types: efciency, excellence, play, esthetics, status,
esteem, ethics and spirituality.
In the initial exposure to a product (typically in internet search re-
sults or in retail aisles), consumers make value judgments based on
the cues provided by its design (Bloch, 1995). This process may be less
cognitive and less information rich than a more comprehensive evalua-
tion of value that Holbrook's typology is based upon. Therefore, it is im-
portant to empirically investigate if Holbrook's typology applies to value
discerned from product design alone.
3. Qualitative studies
Two qualitative studies were conducted with related purposes: 1) to
develop themes of values that consumers glean from product design,
and 2) to compare and contrast these themes with Holbrook's (1999)
typology. Given the broad goals of these research questions and the
thinly developed state of knowledge in the area, a grounded theory ap-
proach seemed appropriate. Grounded theory development is well ac-
cepted as a methodology for creating theory, either in areas where
theory is not well developed or where theoretical questions have not
been answered (Strauss & Corbin, 1990; Suddaby, 2006) and has been
used widely in the business literature for developmental situations
(e.g., Martin, 2007; Woodside, MacDonald, & Burford, 2004). In this
method, researchers often combine a broad search for literature-based
insights with new perspectives generated from qualitative research to
inductively develop theory on the phenomenon of interest (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967). Two broad schools that have received attention are
those employing the Gioia method (based on an iterative, thematic
coding process) or the Eisenhardt approach (generally based on ob-
servations from one or a few case studies) (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton,
2012; Langley & Abdallah, 2011). This study generally follows the so-
called Gioia method in ultimately distilling multiple forms and a
large quantity of qualitative data into dimensional themes related to de-
sign value, while being mindful of existing research ndings and theory.
3.1. Method
In the rst study, 30 award-winning product designs along with the
commentaries on them were examined using popular business maga-
zines and anthologies (Noble & Kumar, 2010). For example, a review
of the last ve years of Industrial Design Excellence Award winners in
BusinessWeek proved to be a unique and valuable resource, since these
annual issues feature reviews that include rich and detailed descriptions
of product's unique product features, as well as commentary on why
users would value the designs (IDSA, 2001, 2004).
Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
In the second qualitative study, consumer perspectives on the value
of product design were sought. The goal here was to determine how
consumers see value in a product's design. To achieve this end, a
paper-based survey for class credit was administered to undergraduate
and graduate students (N = 48) in a New Product Design and Develop-
ment class from a large public university in the western United States.
Demographically, the average age of the participants was 25.2 years;
60% were male; 51% lived in the city, 32% lived in the suburbs and the
rest rural. In a task similar to the one employed by Dahl and Moreau
(2002), participants were rst asked to draw a likeness of their favorite
product design (The goal here was to create task involvement and to ac-
tivate respondents' memory about specic design elements) and then
answer a series of questions such as; Why did you think it was a well-
designed product?, What was of value in the design of the product? And,
How did the design communicate this value to you? Participants provided
a one-page essay that contained detailed answers. These data were
merged with the previously collected data.
Through these methods, a substantial pool of qualitative data was
collected. As recommended by Strauss and Corbin (1990), the two au-
thors coded the resulting data independently in a rigorous process
using three forms of coding (termed open, axial, and selective). The
goals of these coding steps are to reduce a wide range of information
into a manageable number of variables or themes. Using sets of index
cards, ve iterative rounds were conducted in order to solidify, reduce
and, where possible, combine concepts. Following recommendations
by Weber (1990), interjudge reliability was assessed to ascertain
whether the two investigators classied the same words into the
same value type over time, resulting in a reliability level of 92% for the
study. A constant comparison of the evolving theory and the data was
employed throughout the qualitative data collection phases and analy-
sis as new insights were compared against and, when appropriate, used
to modify the working model (Suddaby, 2006). Although there were in-
dividual differences in the types of values highlighted and the depth of
the comments used to describe the values, an individual trait that
Bloch, Brunel, and Todd (2003) refer to as design acumen, a consistent
set of broad-based value types emerged from this process. The design
acumen construct will be revisited later in the article. Because of space
constraints, Table 1 provides merely a few examples of the qualitative
data, the coding, and the themes that emerged from the data.
4. Results: the SAFEty of value
Through the constant comparison of the qualitative data and
existing literature, two value dimensions (functional and esthetic)
were found that are consistent with the traditional form and function
characterization of product design. However, a third major self-
expressive dimension that includes two distinct value sub-dimensions
(social and altruistic) also emerged. Thus, four core themes of design-
based values emerged: Social, Altruistic, Functional and Esthetic (hence-
forth termed SAFE). Next, these value themes along with the salient
theoretical literature for each value type are highlighted.
4.1. Esthetic value
Esthetic value of the product design is dened as the consumer's
perception of attractiveness and pleasure derived from its appearance.
The esthetic properties of products are primarily hedonic in nature
and its value discernment is often sensory at what Norman (2004)
calls the visceral level. As comments A1A3 (see Table 1) imply and
neuroaesthetics research show, these appraisals are often automatic or
subconscious and happen milliseconds after exposure to the design
(Cela-Conde et al., 2013). Nevertheless, these visceral assessments of
esthetic value have implications for the more deliberate latter stages
(cf. Leder, Belke, Oeberst, & Augustin, 2004).
Consumer reactions to esthetics have been widely investigated in
marketing and product development literature (cf. Luchs & Swan,
 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx 3

Table 1
Example data from qualitative data collection.

Qualitative data example and data source Open codes Axial codes Selective code

A1: The team wanted the Ojex juicer to look unied rather than like an assembly of parts. Unied Form-elements Esthetic value
The chosen design depends on a predominant C shape as dened by the base and head to benets (hedonic value type)
create a sculptural statement. The handle and other elements contribute to this
unied statement; all parts are in harmony for uency of processing. (IDSA, 2001).
A2: I just love the way my iPhone looks. Its simple, clean, pleasant and minimalistic design. Minimalistic
It is beautiful. (Krystal; Consumer Study Participant).
A3: I recently got the Alessi Juicy Salif for my girlfriend a few years back, and she loves it Elegance Gestalt esthetic
mostly for the elegant design. Although it is incredibly overpriced for how ineffectively it
juices, it looks great in the kitchen and never fails in creating a conversation when her
friends see it! (Dana; Consumer Study Participant)
A4: I love the exteriors of my Volkswagen Beetle. Its face makes me smile every time I look at it. Cute/playful
I have loved the Beetle since I was a kid and always wanted to own it. At the time, this
was one car I loved to play with if I could! Over the years, I have developed a special
affection to its happy and cute design. (Bai Dong; Consumer Study Participant).
B1: Our feeling was that, when you are introducing something as new as the Segway Human Ergonomics/Human Effectiveness Functional value
Transporter, you run the risk of scaring people, and we didn't want this robot with motors Factors (utilitarian value type)
hanging off of it and wires everywhere; we wanted it to look clean, honest and intuitive
to use. (IDSA, 2004).
B2: I know the environmentalists among us will hate me for saying this but the Hummer Performance cues
H4 appears to be one mean machine. The angular edges and the size of the product convey
performance, sturdiness, and strength. (Jeremy; Consumer Study Participant)
B3: Most pocketknives are made for right-handed people. In the past I have hurt myself using Reliable and safe Efciency
these types of knives in my outdoor activities. The Ken Onion Leek Knife is ambidextrous and
keeps me from hurting myself. The Speed-Safe opening mechanism is reliable and perfect.
It's also quite satisfying because the click communicates the opening or closing the knife.
(Trevor; Consumer Study Participant).
C1: I love my Vibram FiveFingers shoes most because they look very different from shoes Novelty/Attention Increases self esteem Social value
worn by most other people and grab people's attention when I am in them. grabbing (self expressive type)
(Kristina; Consumer Study Participant)
C2: I bought my rst Juicy Couture handbag yesterday! It has an upscale and sophisticated Makes me look good
looking design. I think my friends are going to be impressed with the looks of this bag. I
going to look hot with it! (Chelsea; Consumer Study Participant).
C3: I like the Porche's Cayenne's design because of its distinctive design and obviously its Prestige cue Status
performance. The elliptical headlights are almost like a prestige symbol that has been copied
with varying degrees of success by other car manufacturers but none like the Porche brand.
(Aaron; Consumer Study Participant)
D1: The elements differentiating Birsel's Concept from traditional ofce systems are the Openness and Sustainable Altruistic value
120-degree geometry (the centerpiece of which positions users and their technology at a eco-friendliness (self expressive type)
boomerang shaped table), the materials are translucent and more environment friendly, and
the layout is more open. Overall, it creates a more open environment and more
efcient use of space. (IDSA, 2001)
D2: The Prius has a distinctive design language that conveys that it is an energy efcient car. Biodegradable
A lot of the materials that it is made of are biodegradable or recyclable. If I have to believe
what I hear and see about what is happening to planet earth, these should be important
considerations while buying a product. (Jessica; Consumer Study Participant)
D3: In exploring the idea behind the diamond engagement ring and what it stands for, Symbolizes devotion Love/devotion for others
our goal was to create a transcendental piece of jewelry. The design we created
showcased a box, through which you can see a ring that glitters with the promise
of karats and love in spades. The simplistic design and the materials used symbolize
the promise of love for then and hopefully for forever. (John; President at Lunar Design).

2011). The esthetic elements of a design (line, curves etc.) can be strate-
gically used in ways to create different perceptions of unity, proportion,
symmetry and an overall sense of uency and attractiveness (Kumar &
Garg, 2010; Orth & Malkewitz, 2008; Veryzer & Hutchinson, 1998).
These in turn can affect the cognitive appraisals process and result in
emotions such as pleasure and surprise (Cela-Conde et al., 2013;
Desmet, 2002). In summary, consumers often ascribe value to the es-
thetic properties of a product design that can be visceral and subcon-
scious in nature.
4.2. Functional value
Functional value in a product's design is dened as the way it helps
meet the practical or utilitarian needs of the consumer. This type of
value reects the cognitive assessment of the design elements that
serve a purpose at what Norman (2004) describes as the behavioral
level. As comments B1, B2, and B3 in Table 1 imply, the design of the
product can communicate a number of different practical consider-
ations such as effectiveness, ease of use, reliability, sturdiness, durabili-
ty, safety, need for maintenance, and multi-functionality (Creusen &
Schoormans, 2005; Crilly, Moultrie, & Clarkson, 2004; Oppenheimer,
2005). These utilitarian considerations were combined under functional
value.
Designers often consider the encounter between a product and a
consumer as a conversation between the design of the product and
the user and employ the user interface to communicate the product's
functionality (Oppenheimer, 2005). Ergonomic and human-factors
considerations are elements that can drive an ease of use perception
and provide utilitarian value, as comment B1 in Table 1 suggests. De-
signers strive to use design to communicate (through form, visual
cues, lights and auditory signals) what the product is, its quality
(through the materials used and nish), the tasks it can perform,
how the task can be accomplished and when the task is complete,
all in an intuitive manner (Noble & Kumar, 2010; Oppenheimer,
2005). Notably, ease of use was the most often cited benet by con-
sumer respondents in this research, with over 40% of them citing it
in the design of their favorite products. In summary, consumers
often ascribe utilitarian value to the functional properties of design
based on how the design communicates its quality and how effec-
tively and efciently it can do the task at hand.

Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
4 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx
4.3. Social value
While esthetic and functional values provided by product design
have been investigated extensively in the literature, this research nds
that product design can also become a vehicle for self-expression and
self-identity (Belk, 1988) because it provides opportunities for visibility
during the usage experience. Gaining value by using product design as a
mode of self-expression involves the personal and social signicance at-
tached to the design and is reective (Norman, 2004) in nature. While
there can be a plethora of self-expressive meanings that products can
provide to consumers (Belk, 1988), two very specic dimensions to it
in the context of product design were found. The rst dimension is so-
cial value.
Social value in a product design is dened as its ability to help con-
sumers increase their perceived status in the community and/or im-
prove their self-esteem. While making social value judgments from
product design, consumers are primarily thinking about themselves in
relation to others. It can give consumers a sense of status or self-
esteem through their perceptions of the impression they make during
product usage. As comments C2 and C3 (see Table 1) show, some con-
sumers focus on specic design elements but others derive a more ge-
stalt impression of what the design can do for them with the purpose
of making an impression on others. The notion that consumers also
strive for uniqueness that often helps them achieve better self-esteem
is well documented in literature (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs,
1995; Tian, Bearden, & Hunter, 2001). Designers can help consumers
achieve such uniqueness by embedding various levels of newness (of
form or function or meaning) into the design of the product as comment
C1 suggests. In summary, consumers often reect on the value of the
design in making them look sophisticated in their peer groups and its
potential to increase self-esteem.
4.4. Altruistic value
A second self-expressive, reective-level (Norman, 2004), value
type that emerged from the data is altruistic value conveyed by product
design. Altruistic value in a product design is dened as the consumer's
perception of how it enables them in helping other individuals and the
society at large. In this dataset the respondents' comments often related
to the designs' environmental and social sustainability (Sheth, Sethia, &
Srinivas, 2011). Comments such as D1 and D2 (see Table 1) in the
dataset indicate that sustainability and frugality in using resources
was valuable and designs that are able to communicate this frugality
elicited favorable responses. Brands such as Toyota Prius have recently
focused its products and advertisements on such cradle to grave vs.
cradle to cradle considerations in the materials and design to connect
their design elements to consumer needs for altruistic value. For exam-
ple, some respondents commented on the handles of OXO peelers as
being designed with older, marginalized sections of the population in
mind. While the frequency of mentions for altruistic value was lower
than for the other value types, as the Lifestyles Of Health And Sustain-
ability (LOHAS) segment steadily grows, businesses will provide more
importance to not only embed this type of value into their products
but also to communicating altruistic value through product design
(Fuller & Ottman, 2004; Luchs, Brower, & Chitturi, 2012).
In conclusion, altruistic value is ascribed to a design when con-
sumers reect on how the design can help others and how they can
use it to showcase their self-identity. It differs from social value in that
the consumer is primarily concerned with the benets accrued by
others more than they are concerned about the benets for themselves.
5. Implications of SAFE typology
In the beginning of the qualitative studies, this research set out to
identify the different types of value that product design provides for
consumers and how they mapped into Holbrook's (1999) typology. As
Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
mentioned earlier, Holbrook's extensive work on consumer value
explored the value of products in general but not the value of product
design, the topic of interest in this research. Therefore, while some of
the value types (related to functional effectiveness and efciency, and
esthetics) that Holbrook identies in his typology can be discerned
purely from the product design, some others such as quality, ethics,
and spirituality that either need prolonged periods of active use to be re-
alized or are deeply reective in nature may be less readily discerned in
routine consumption situations. This is especially true when consumers
are window-shopping or shopping for products on the Internet where
they are unable to touch, feel or handle, necessitating value judgments
based on less information (Rosa et al., 2014). Further, consumer ap-
praisals of the esthetic quality of designs are reactionary, subconscious
and involve low effort (cf. Cela-Conde et al., 2013; Kumar & Garg, 2010).
This research nds that Holbrook's typology, while offering important
insights into the concept of value in situations that need effortful and in-
volved processing, offers less guidance in situations where appraisals of
value are less active or indeed are subconscious in nature.
This research nds that in consumption situations involving value
discernment merely from product design, consumer appraisals of
value are predominantly reactionary and that one of the dimensions
(i.e., activereactive) of the Holbrook typology can be consolidated.
This would then make the SAFE value typology into a special case of
Holbrook's (1999) typology with two-dimensions that each have two
sub dimensions. In this way functional value is self-oriented and extrin-
sic; esthetic value is self-oriented and intrinsic; altruistic value is other-
oriented and extrinsic; and social value is other-oriented and intrinsic.
Another unaddressed need is that there is no well-developed mea-
sure of the value types in the context of product design that academics
and business practitioners can use. This is where this research turns its
attention next: to scale development.
6. Measure development
The goal of this phase of the research was to develop a valid and re-
liable scale for assessing the value of product design. To do so, standard
procedures for scale development (e.g., Churchill, 1979) were followed.
Although some existing scales were considered (e.g., Babin, Darden, &
Grifn, 1994; Sweeney & Soutar, 2001) none covered the full range of
the conceptual domain of the SAFE value typology. Both scales that
were considered were dimensionally different from the constructs in
this study (e.g., neither had the altruistic value dimension). The rich
qualitative database from the grounded theory process and help from
a panel of 10 senior members of various new product development
teams were used to generate an initial set of 60 items that captured
the SAFE value dimensions. Next, the scale was administered to 369 re-
spondents (in two steps: 61 students in a large public university in the
southeastern United States, and 308 respondents on Amazon M Turk),
for renement. After extensive item analysis and exploratory factor
analysis, a 27-item measure resulted. The resulting items showed ac-
ceptable internal consistencies, with coefcient alphas ranging from
0.700.93, and an overall coefcient alpha for the design value scale of
0.82 at this point in the development.
In order to further rene the scale and to validate it, the authors
sought real world data from design services consulting rms. Two of
the top 10 design services rms in the United States consented to partic-
ipate in the research. Final nished products that these design services
rms created for their clients were used as the setting for the data col-
lection. To allow for generalizability, 72 products from a wide range of
categories and complexities were studied (as varied as fondue forks to
insulin pumps). Consumer panel participants (N = 347) were solicited
for participation in a blind test (brand names of products were not re-
vealed) involving the products developed at the design services rms.
At the companies' testing facilities, respondents were asked to visually
examine the product for ve minutes before completing a computer-
based survey instrument.
 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx 5

Table 2
Scale items, loadings, reliabilities, and internal consistency statistics for SAFE scale.

Construct Mean Standardized Cronbach's Composite Ave

All items were measured on a 7 point Likert scale response How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following loading alpha reliability
statements. Anchors: 1 strongly disagree, 4 neither agree nor disagree and 7 strongly agree.

Overall scale (16 items) 2.94 0.95

Esthetic value 3.85 0.94 0.95 0.76
The design of this product gives me pleasure 4.21 0.84
The curves and lines of this design make it appealing to me. 3.95 0.93
I like the esthetics of this product 3.67 0.94
The design of the product is attractive. 3.6 0.89
Social value 3.3 0.96 0.97 0.86
My peers would be impressed with my design choice if they saw me using this product 3.36 0.91
If others saw me using this product, the design of the product will help increase my prestige 3.15 0.93
By using this design I will make a good impression on others 3.36 0.95
This design of this product can help increase my stature in society 3.37 0.94
Altruistic value 3.25 0.91 0.92 0.74
The design of the product is such that I will feel that I am fullling a social responsibility when I use it 3.27 0.90
The design of the product is such that I feel that I am helping society by using it 3.23 0.94
The design of the product is such that I will feel I am helping others by using this design 3.18 0.91
The design of the product communicates to me that it would be ethically right to buy this product 3.33 0.90
Functional value 3.35 0.87 0.92 0.67
The design of the product will make it work well. 2.97 0.83
The design of this product will give me high functional utility 3.41 0.85
The design of the product conveys high standards of quality. 3.08 0.66
This design of this product makes it easy to use. 3.45 0.62

Fit statistics for conrmatory factor analysis: model chi-square = 226.4 (p b .001), df = 146, 2/df = 1.56, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.95, and RMSEA is 0.04.

6.1. Data analysis
After an extensive data preparation effort, including missing data
analysis, outlier analysis, and normality analysis, a total of 309 usable
consumer surveys from a total of 58 products were retained for further
analysis. A conrmatory factor analysis was rst conducted to rene the
scales and assess unidimensionality. After a consideration of t, several
items were eliminated from the scale (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The
resulting 16-item measurement model t the data well (see Table 2 for
t statistics). None of the standardized residual loadings had an absolute
value of more than |4.0|, indicating no problems with the t between
the data and the model. The average variance extracted (AVE), construct
reliabilities, and Cronbach's alpha were examined to evaluate conver-
gent validity for the resulting measurement model (Anderson &
Gerbing, 1988). An examination of AVE (Table 2) shows that the mea-
sures converged into their respective latent variables acceptably. Dis-
criminant validity was tested through the variance-extracted test
proposed by Fornell and Larcker (1981). As Table 2 shows, none of the
shared variance between construct pairs was higher than the average
variance extracted by the individual factors. Pair-wise discriminant va-
lidity assessments were also conducted by comparing CFA models in
which the covariance coefcient between each possible pair of con-
structs was xed at one and the changes to 2 values were assessed
(Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). Changes in 2 were signicantly larger
in the constrained models in each case, suggesting discriminant validity
in each model.
In sum, this empirical work resulted in a reliable and valid 16-item
measure of SAFE values. Next, the usefulness of the scale in the context
of a consumer study is tested.
7. Application of value typology and scale
As noted earlier, while consumers perceive different types of value
from product design, the differences in the extent and details of the
comments in the qualitative phase also indicated individual differences
in value discernment. In other words, some respondents were more ar-
ticulate and detailed in their explanations of the value that they per-
ceived in the product design than others. One existing construct that
shows that different consumers have varying capabilities in processing
esthetic information is design acumen (Bloch et al., 2003). Design
acumen reects an individual's ability to recognize, categorize and eval-
uate product designs. This is expected to vary in the population (Bloch
et al., 2003). It is posited here that consumers who have higher design
acumen are able to discern greater value from products imbued with
higher design value than consumers who have lower design acumen
(Bloch et al., 2003). Perceptions of value, in turn, are critical in driving
preference for the product (Holbrook, 1999). Therefore it is hypothe-
sized that:
H1. The difference in perception of product design value for products
embedded with greater (lesser) design value (social, altruistic, function-
al, and esthetic) will be greater (lesser) for individuals with higher
(lower) design acumen.
H2. Product design value will be a signicant predictor of preference for
the product.
This phase of research had twofold aims: to test the hypotheses
above and to test the usefulness of the SAFE value scale in a setting
that juxtaposed products imbued with high and low design values.
7.1. Procedure
In a similar method to Hoefer (2003), two product categories were
selected (ceiling fans and air puriers) for which product design is a sa-
lient factor yet not the most important factor in product preference.
After reviewing design magazines and pretests, several IDSA award
winners were chosen to represent products with high SAFE values
(henceforth called High Design Product) embedded in their design. To
represent the low design value products (henceforth called Low Design
Product) several products from Amazon.com that were typical or mun-
dane examples of the product category were selected and pretested. In
the pretests, consumers showed moderate involvement but basic
knowledge necessary about these categories of products. Importantly,
these pretests showed that the four designs chosen for the main study
(shown in Table 1) were rated very high (low) on the SAFE value scale.
Next, participants (N = 252, 58.7% females; Mage = 38.9) were re-
cruited via Amazon.com's crowd-sourcing website, Mechanical Turk,
to complete a brief (10 min) questionnaire on rating products in ex-
change for a nominal fee ($1.00; see Paolacci, Chandler, and Ipeirotis,
(2010) for a validation of Mechanical Turk as a data source). Participants
were told that their help was needed in understanding how they

Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
6 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx

perceive value from product design and their preference for an air puri- Table 4a
er and a ceiling fan. Using Qualtrics as a web-based survey tool, they ANCOVA results controlling for effects of Novelty.

were then exposed to either a High Design or a Low Design product Tests of between-subjects effects
from each of the two product categories. The web-based tool random- Source Type III sum of squares df Mean square F Sig.
ized the stimulus type and order. Following each stimulus they were
Dependent variable: SAFE value score for low design air purier
administered a 3-item Likert-type preference scale modied from
Corrected model 55.374 (R square: .43) 2 27.687 48.194 p b .001
Mehrabian and de Wetter (1987) for the design context. Next they Intercept 0.143 1 0.143 0.249 0.619
were administered the SAFE value scale and the design acumen scale Novelty 48.792 1 48.792 84.932 p b .001
(Bloch et al., 2003). Perceptions of novelty of the product design along Design acumen 2.798 1 2.798 4.871 p b .001
with other demographic variables were also measured since these can Error 71.811 125 0.574

play an important role not only in the discernment of value in the prod- Dependent variable: SAFE value score for high design air purier
uct design but also in the preference for the product (Kumar & Garg, Corrected model 18.893 (R square: .30) 2 9.447 13.065 p b .001
2010). Intercept 0.197 1 0.197 0.273 0.603
Novelty 15.724 1 15.724 21.746 p b .001
Design acumen 3.145 1 3.145 4.35 p b .001
7.2. Analysis and results Error 44.107 61 0.723

Dependent variable: SAFE value score for low design ceiling fan
In order to operationalize the high and low design acumen, a cate- Corrected model 46.333 (R square: .42) 2 23.166 40.393 p b .001
gorical variable that split the respondents into high and low categories Intercept 0.135 1 0.135 0.236 0.628
around the median for the summated and averaged design acumen var- Novelty 39.308 1 39.308 68.538 p b .001
iable was created ( = .90 and Median = 5.4). Analyses of variances for Design acumen 1.919 1 1.919 3.346 p b .001
Error 62.514 109 0.574
each of the four designs that compared means of the summated SAFE
value scales with high and low design acumen as the independent var- Dependent variable: SAFE value score for high design ceiling fan
iable were run. As Table 3 shows, for High Design products respondents Corrected model 30.174 (R square: .36) 2 15.087 23.793 p b .001
Intercept 0.188 1 0.188 0.297 0.587
with higher design acumen (Air Puriers M = 74.9, Ceiling Fan M =
Novelty 14.698 1 14.698 23.179 p b .001
67.1) discerned signicantly more value than respondents with low de- Design acumen 14.388 1 14.388 22.691 p b .001
sign acumen (Air Puriers M = 65.9, Ceiling Fan M = 56.5). Conversely, Error 48.826 77 0.634
for Low Design products respondents with higher design acumen (Air
Puriers M = 55.7, Ceiling Fan M = 63.3) discerned signicantly less
value than respondents with low design acumen (Air Puriers M = study showed that the SAFE value scale was not only able to discrimi-
65.9, Ceiling Fan M = 83.1). Given the importance of perceptions of nate between a well-designed product and a not so well-designed prod-
novelty in consumer design evaluations (Kumar & Garg, 2010), an anal- uct but also was useful in application.
ysis of covariance was conducted with design acumen and perceptions
of Novelty in the designs as a covariate as predictors of SAFE value per- 8. Implications, limitations, and future directions
ception for each of the four product designs. As shown in Table 4a, con-
trolling for Novelty, for each of the four products there was a signicant Although Holbrook (1999) explored the value of products in general,
effect of design acumen on value perceptions. Thus, high (low) design past research has not directly examined the nature and dimensionality
acumen respondents discern greater (lesser) value from a High (Low) of the value consumers derive from product design. In fact, prior re-
Design product regardless of their perceptions of novelty in the design. search has often equated product design merely to form and functional
Together, these analyses demonstrate strong support for H1. issues (e.g., Chitturi et al., 2008; Hirschman & Holbrook, 1980). The
Next, the relationship between value perceptions and preferences qualitative methodology used here shows that product design can com-
across all products was explored in a regression model. As Table 4b municate value to consumers that is based not only on form (esthetic
shows, consistent with H2, the SAFE scale was a strong predictor of pref- value) and function (functional value), but it also conveys a self-
erence ( = 0.82, t = 22.46). In summary of this empirical work, this expressive dimension (social and altruistic value) (Belk, 1988). We

Table 3
Results of independent sample t-tests.

N Mean for SAFE value scale F df Sig. 2 tailed

Air purier Low design acumen 66 65.93 7.032 127 p b .001

High design acumen 62 55.74
Low design value

Low design acumen 25 65.96 3.28 63 p b .001

High design acumen 39 74.92

High design value

Ceiling fan Low design acumen 34 83.17 7.83 79 p b .001

High design acumen 46 63.32
Low design value

Low design acumen 57 56.52 19.46 111 p b .001

High design acumen 55 67.18
High design value

Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
 M. Kumar, C.H. Noble / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxxxxx
Table 4b
Results of regression analysis with preference as dependent variable.
Model Unstandardized coefcients
B Std. error
(Constant) 0.436 0.228
SAFE value perception 0.061 0.003
Novelty 0.03 0.036
Design acumen 0.08 0.042
Adjusted R square: 6.9.
demonstrate that the SAFE model is a special condition of Holbrook's
(1999) typology because, in many consumption situations, value judg-
ments based on product design alone are necessary and are often
more reactive than the generally more active variety considered by
Holbrook (1999). The active brand experience considered by Holbrook
results in a more complex and seemingly richer model of brand value
than we present from a design perspective. Past research has shown
that the extent of richness of information (e.g., vision and touch) can af-
fect perceptions of value (Rosa et al., 2014). However, the more holistic
design-based approach we present does suggest a new dimension with
two novel elements of design value. Further, a reliable and valid scale for
the four SAFE value dimensions was developed. Finally, the scale was
put to use to demonstrate that consumers' design acumen helps them
be more discriminating in the designs that they prefer. We discuss
important limitations of this research next.
While the effect of brands was controlled for in the scale develop-
ment and scale validation studies in this research, this effect can't be
controlled for in a traditional sense in the qualitative work. Given the
focus of this research on design value, it was unable to explore the
brand and design value connection in great depth. Perception of value
and perceptions of the brand are closely intertwined (Kumar,
Townsend, & Vorhies, 2014). Disentangling the effect of brands is im-
portant because the signature design language associated with brands
(e.g., BMW grills, minimalistic design from Apple) can often become a
vehicle for self-expression (Park, Jaworski, & MacInnis, 1986) of status
or personality, resulting in social value. Therefore, this area represents
a limitation of this research that future research should explore.
8.1. Product design and value communication
Given that product design is the most visible part of a product and
the brand it represents, it often becomes a vehicle to communicate, es-
thetics, functionality and self-expression (Creusen & Schoormans,
2005). The ndings from this research have implications for the hedon-
ic/utilitarian attributes of product design (e.g., Chitturi et al., 2007,
2008; Giese et al., 2014). First, it adds the self-expressive dimension to
the mix. Second, it sets the stage to investigate further if the ideas of
precedence principle and hedonic dominance (Chitturi et al., 2007,
2008) apply under all trade-off conditions. Future research can also in-
vestigate the role of specic emotions (e.g., pride, guilt, condence, dis-
tress, excitement and disappointment) in making trade-off choices
among the various valued attributes (e.g., esthetic and altruistic value).
Post hoc analysis of the data from the marketing study also showed
that the greatest differences in value perceptions between high and low
design acumen consumers occurred in the altruistic value dimension.
Brands that want to communicate altruistic value should carefully con-
sider this more discriminating type of consumer as part of their target
audience. This consumer may be reecting more on the product de-
sign than consumers with lower design acumen. The altruistic value
component of the value typology should be of particular interest in fu-
ture research for products and brands that want to promote sustainabil-
ity. As the qualitative data in this research suggests, some consumers
dislike waste and perceive simple and more natural forms to communi-
cate this sense of frugality. The common theme of simplicity of design
Please cite this article as: Kumar, M., & Noble, C.H., Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?, Journal of Business Re-
search (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.017
7
Standardized coefcients t Sig.
Beta
1.915 0.056
0.828 22.469 p b .001
0.03 0.843 0.4
0.056 1.911 p b .001
and its association with sustainability warrants more systematic
investigation.
8.2. Product design and value creation
The SAFE value scale provides an opportunity to map out the cong-
uration of values in a product design. In the product development pro-
cess, NPD managers can assess the match or mismatch between the
value congurations intended by the designers, the values perceived
by marketers, and values perceived by consumers. Studying why, how,
and when these values are (or are not) effectively conveyed could be
of great value to researchers and managers alike. To gauge their
product-development effectiveness, NPD managers can identify the tar-
get values that consumers look for in their ideal products as compared
to the values perceived in a developed product.
In conclusion, this study has added some much needed theoretical
grounding to our understanding of why buyers and consumers value
product design. This research has shown that product design is about
more than just good looks or better functionality it is about touching
buyers on many levels to satisfy their spoken and unspoken desires.
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