Abstract
Usability testing that makes a subject do some tasks with prototypes has been mainly used for evaluating user friendliness of home appliances in the past. However, consumers often choose the products according to their visual impressions of user friendliness when they purchase the products in the market. In addition to this, little attention has been given to these issues. This paper is intended to analyze the visual impressions of user friendliness based on rough set theory in the case of home appliances. First, we attempted to analyze the products in the current market, and extracted some factors which made users feel user friendly. Then, we made some visual prototypes that were based on the results of the previous analysis. Finally, we conducted the survey to compare these prototypes with some current products by thirty subjects. As a result, it was found that distinction of the buttons on the operational panel by means of size and colors was the most important factor of the visual impression of user friendliness. Additionally, we found rough set theory was useful in order to analyze the visual impressions.
