2019 Volume 3 Issue 2 Pages 2_21-2_28
In this study, we aimed to address the following question related to ready-to-assemble furniture: What type of shape might affect the ability to be easily understood and improve efficiency during the assembly task? To this end, we added separate geometric and curve-shaped options to a joint-cube puzzle. We conducted a two-part experiment involving 35 participants whose actions were recorded and statistically analyzed. In the first part, we compared and analyzed the duration, number of errors, and number of spatial rotation actions in the assembly of three cube puzzles. The second part mainly compared changes in participants' mental behaviors with each shape option. The results indicated that adding geometric or curve characteristics to joint puzzles can reduce both visual interference and assembly duration. Further, we also found that geometric shape characteristics had a lower error rate while curve-shaped characteristics were associated with reduced assembly time.
