The purpose of this study was to investigate the electroencephalographic activity after smelling two kinds of green tea and to examine any anti-stress effects of smelling green tea. Ten subjects (6 male and 4 female) participated in this study. We used two kinds of green tea, Sagara and Shaded White Tea, which were made from the same kind of tea leaf but by different manufacturing processes. We used an arithmetic task and an auditory discrimination task to test mental stress. An electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded before and after smelling the tea samples and before and after performing the mental tasks. Subjective ratings about mental status were obtained with the profiles of mood states (POMS) and the visual analog scale (VAS) at the end of each task. EEG was recorded from 4 scalp positions of the international 10/20 system (F3, F4, O1 and O2), and EEG activity was estimated for 4 frequency bands (alpha1, alpha2, beta1 and beta2). The results showed that the subjective rating about relaxed feeling increased and electroencephalographic activities changed after smelling green tea, especially Shaded White Tea, suggesting that smelling green tea may have anti-stress effects.

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It is still unclear in the literature whether it is possible to use brain wave power to measure a subject's personal preference for different beverages. We conducted two experiments to investigate the relations between subjective evaluation of a beverage and physiological responses by measuring the activities of the central nervous system before and after the intake of different kinds of beverage. First, we took measurements when subjects ingested water of different temperatures and studied the differences in results. We then performed a similar experiment using different beverage samples at the same temperature, identified by the subject as his “favorite” or “least favorite” from among ten commercially supplied soft drinks. In each trial, subjects consumed the favorite and least-favorite beverage along with Kuding tea, a bitter-tasting drink used in Chinese medicine. Our results found that beverages might affect mood in relaxation and mental task performance, and that these changes showed correlations with frontal EEG alpha band activities.

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This paper describes an electroencephalogram (EEG) response while imaging music with and without listening to it. It is reported that, by performing actions (such as singing, imaging, etc.) in synchronization with music, we can feel more pleasant than when not performing these actions. We think that emotions (such as pleasantness, sadness, etc.) may be different between imaging music with and without listening to it. Taking these issues into consideration, we investigate activated parts of the brain while listening or not listening to known and unknown music to explore the source of emotions evoked by past experiences. As a result, the visual cortex is activated while listening to known music, but it is not activated while listening to unknown music. In conclusion, we know that the subjects tend to perceive known music more visually when imaging music with listening than when doing without listening to it. This may suggest that the activation of visual cortex is related to the emotions evoked by past experiences.

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The Services and Support for Persons with Disabilities Act was implemented in 2006 to encourage the societal participation of people with disabilities and thereby to improve their quality of life. What actually happened, however, was that many of those utilizing vocational aid centers (VACs) ended up bearing a heavier financial burden. Universal design management has been applied in efforts to ameliorate this situation, and in this report, we examine several exemplary cases. We analyze the factors for success, particularly the manner of support provided by local government agencies, and propose support methods to bring out the full effectiveness of universal design management.

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The visual representations of intelligent agents draw increasing attention recently. Additionally, the first impression of humans toward agents is the visual representations. How these man-made creatures' looks determine users' will to interact with. This research focuses on the appearances of embodied agents to investigate the affective interactions between users and agents. This study conducted one experiment to study the affective influences of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) on users in the learning tasks. A one-factor-at-three-levels counterbalanced by within-subjects design is employed in this study. This study asks whether there are significant experiential differences between ECAs when they are represented by different character classifications, such as character preference, user engagement and user-agent relationships. The main contributions of this study are summarised as follows: (1) character classifications can be related to human affective factors; and (2) there may be significant relations among character preference, engagement and user-agent relationships.

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This paper proposes a Japanese speech synthesis system that is capable of expressing variable degrees of emotions based on prosody as well as voice-quality conversion. Among voice-quality features, we find that the spectral tilts depend on the type and degree of emotion. Up to date, we have introduced a spectral-tilt conversion rule into our speech-synthesis system. From our previous analyses, we found that the spectral-tilt quantities increased as the degrees of “anger”, “joy”, and “crying-type (hot) sadness” increased. On the other hand, the spectral-tilt quantities were found to decrease as the degree of “dispirited-and-whispering-type (cold) sadness” increased. We formulate a transfer function that converts spectral-tilt quantities of “neutral” speech to those of emotional speech in various degrees. The prosody-conversion rules are also determined based on our previous findings. Informal listening to synthetic-speech samples converted by the proposed method gives us impressions of those similar to natural emotional speech and the differences depending on the degrees of emotions are recognizable.

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In order to estimate the profiles of users, the relationship between the groups such as ages and/or gender and the attributes such as hobbies and/or preference which are acquired by the response of a questionnaire are analyzed. The aim of this paper is to obtain the detail relationship between each category. This paper focused on the independency of the axes in the score space in quantification theory type 3. In this paper, the information of the groups and the attributes acquired from a questionnaire data were converted from the feature space into the score space by quantification theory type 3. The profiling method based on the categorical inner products between groups and attributes and the visualization method for the analysis were proposed and were applied to an actual questionnaire data in this paper.

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The purpose of this paper is to consider the process of the Kansei (sensibility) of “roof garden” through the journey of Le Corbusier (1887-1965) in 1911 and his architectural works from the viewpoint of Kansei-philosophy. We analyzed Le Corbusier's descriptions extracted from his records from the journey Le Voyage d'Orient (1965), and his work collection Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret Œuvres complètes, vols.8. We found that Le Corbusier modernized these three themes (“material”, “composition” and architectural “form”) in the stage of his architectural activity. That is, he integrated the traditional “garden” into the new landscape of “roof garden”.

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This paper aims to consider the proposition concerning urban environments regarding the change from the third to the fourth grade. The method can be categorized into two stages, the first being the conduction of the fieldwork and the workshop, organized as follows (1) “attempt to research”, (2) “attempt to select signs”, (3) “attempt to select icons”, (4) “attempt to propose” and (5) “attempt to criticize”, the second being the comparison of the tendency about the result data. According to the analysis, when the child passes from the third to the fourth grade, he/she turns out to estimate the urban environment more objectively, and comes to propose conservatively. However, we found that as for iconic expression related to the proposition phase, the five senses are maintained.

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Technological advances in recent years have brought us drastic changes in our daily life. ICT devices providing us the new technology have begun to be used for various goal-achievements in various situations. But there still exists a gap between high end users and low end users depending on their demographic traits, where one of the important traits is the generation or the age group. Authors conducted a field survey adopting the contextual inquiry method and analyzed the data by applying M-GTA, then summarized the information as a category relationship diagram. In the diagram, such factors as the motivation for using mobile phone, the active involvement to the communication and the mobile phone literacy were regarded as three principal components.

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Nowadays, people have an ever stronger desire for happiness feeling and thus cause an enhancement in product spirituality. Happiness-image product deepens product connotation and brings sense of happiness besides aesthetic and pleasant perception. Feeling of happiness is originated from sensory intuition as well as cultural and life experience. From viewpoint of Kansei design, this study discusses definition, characteristics and expressing modes of happiness-image product and summarizes design patterns of such products. Focus group is used for two-stage investigation into product characteristics: explicit elements and implicit elements are obtained from product form and product connotation respectively. Finally, design patterns of happiness-image products are summarized according to investigation results. This research finds happiness image can be reflected by color, shape and texture, and consumers' cultural backgrounds and experiences are the key to happiness feeling. Purposes of this study include: investigate spiritual value of product and use introduction of happiness image to strengthen people's everyday perception of product, thus to promote invisible connection and product-human attachment.

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There exist pictures that people have recognized as great, beyond the borders of cultural differences, over the last 100 years. This suggests that such paintings would have certain aesthetic elements in common, and if people are able to recognize them through a shared sense of beauty, it is possible to study what kinds of properties influence people's evaluation of paintings. This study investigated the influence of motif composition on people's impression of Hokusai's paintings. In the experiment, participants were asked to give their impression of the paintings using two kinds of rating scales, the information rate scale (IRS), and the semantic differential (SD) scale. We defined symmetry, complexity and order as the elements of beauty. Results revealed three perceptual features that strongly affect people's impressions of the beauty of paintings.

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This manuscript was withdrawn at the request of the authors. December 10, 2014.

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This article discusses momentary limitations of the Kansei Engineering methods. There are for example the focus on the evaluation of colour and form factors, as well as the highly time consuming creation of the questionnaires. To overcome these limits we firstly suggest the integration of word lists from related research fields, like sociology and cognitive psychology on product emotions in the Kansei questionnaires. Thereafter we present a study on the wide range of Kansei attributes treated in an industrial setting. Concept words used by designers are being collected through word maps and categorized into attributes. In a third step we introduce a user-product interaction schema in which the Kansei attributes from the study are positioned. This schema unfolds potential expansion points for future applications of Kansei engineering beyond its current limits.

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Interaction design is an integrated discipline of designing interactive environments, digital products, and services for our everyday lives. Increasingly, research work in interaction design is addressing user experiences beyond interactive objects to the city- the physical, the social, and the sensible. This paper presents a novel approach to reimaging humane cities by introducing interaction design to an interactive design studio. The student-created interaction design projects are exhibited in a remodeled old house in a historical city. The process, method, and outcome of interaction design practices are explored for culture and urban revitalization.

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This paper compares the voice quality features of emotions: “hot anger”, “cold anger”, “joy”, “hot sadness (crying type)”, and “cold sadness (dispirited and whispering type)” depending on the degree of the emotions in Japanese speech. Among voice-quality features, we place a focus on a spectral tilt. The analysis results show that the spectral-tilt quantities for “hot-anger” and “joy” speech are degree-dependent, i.e., the spectral-tilt quantities for these emotional speech increase significantly as the degree of the emotions becomes greater. On the other hand, the spectral-tilt quantities for “cold anger” and “cold sadness” speech do not show any significant degree-dependency, and even though those for “hot sadness” speech seem to have specific characteristics, they are speaker-dependent. These results confirm that the voice quality of “hot anger” and “joy” changes to the one whose higher-frequency band is more emphasized as the degree of the emotions increases, but that the voice-quality changes of “cold anger”, “hot sadness”, and “cold sadness” do not show any specific degree-dependency.

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This study aims to develop a method for computerized pattern manufacturing system of basic upper garments which are fitted for individuals. We developed a method of individual pattern making for upper garments by modifying a traditional draping system. The required shear limit of the fabric to cover a body varies according to the figure of the wearer. We manufactured upper garment patterns for 8 subjects using our pattern making system. The large shear limit (64°) or the ordinarily shear limit (32°) were set to consider the influence of the shear deformation for a fabric. The grain lines and cutting lines were set at the same position as the traditional basic pattern. It was found that it is necessary to consider shear limit and to examine positions of the grain line and cutting line for individual. Furthermore, by setting the positions of the grain line and cutting line for individuals, it was able to make upper garments which were fitted for individuals.

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The quantitative assessment methods for appearance differences of jackets caused by bonding different adhesive interlinings to face fabric were investigated. A sensory test was carried out to evaluate jacket appearance differences depending on different adhesive interlinings. The quantitative assessment methods of jacket appearances were investigated using 2D and 3D image analysis. The outlines of cross point location for both lapel and bottom in the front view were obtained from the 2D images. The horizontal and vertical cross-sections of bottom part for each jacket were obtained from the 3D images. The compared results with the obtained 2D and 3D images showed a possibility to evaluate jacket appearance changes by bonding adhesive interlining. The variances of the curvature of the vertical cross-section were also obtained. The variances were compared with sensory test results and those showed high correlation each other. Therefore, it was able to evaluate the jacket appearance quantitatively using variance of the curvature from cross-sections of 3D images.

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This paper reports the results of a listening test using Japanese word speech samples of various types and degrees of emotional expressions. The speech samples consist of ‘neutral’ speech as well as speech with three types of emotions (‘anger’, ‘joy’, and ‘sadness’) of three degrees (‘light’, ‘medium’, and ‘strong’). Furthermore, we use three words of three accent type groups: flat, mid-high, and head-high. Based on the listening-test results, we calculate the rate of agreement of the listener's receptivity with the speaker's intention in the type and degree of the emotion to the total number of the listeners. We divide agreement rates into three groups depending on levels. We then analyze the relationships between agreement rates and accent types. The results suggest that there is a significant difference between agreement rates and accent types, and that the emotion of ‘strong joy’ can be perceived most accurately when a speaker utters a ‘mid-high’ accent word.

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This article presents a kansei design methodology. It is placed at the very beginning of the design process and aims to influence the following steps in order to improve the user's understanding and experiencing of the designed product. The experimentation combines in a subtle way the design thinking approach of learning by doing and the kansei engineering quantitative approach. The research presented is based on the results of a previous study that defined the semantic and emotional scope of future hybrid cars for European using visual stimuli. This kansei design methodology creates and assesses multi-sensory atmospheres is order to provide tangible direction composed of vision, touch, hearing and smell stimuli. From the cognitive and affective responses of the 42 participants we were able to detail 3 directions for future cars interiors that aim to enrich the styling design briefs and to influence the design strategies such as the management of the different grades. The research presented here was supported by the Kansei Design department from Toyota Motor Europe (TME-KD). This collaboration also brought an industrial context to it.

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Based on the deeper understanding of human cognition, now we can make designs less conflicting with human nature. However, the gap between design and cognition still impedes the progress of design cognition nowadays. In academia, the boundaries of disciplines make students hardly to learn knowledge of cognition, computing and design practice simultaneously. To build bridge across disciplines, I devise an innovative course, design cognition. The course bridges human cognition (including affect), adaptive technology and design to deduce design principles and constraints, which guide designs of products, services or systems to assist human living a happier life. Happier life requires more positive emotion and more appealing designs, which is also the goal of Affective design. Design cognition has an iterative, four-step course structure. It introduces the cognitive theories established in the past few decades and uses the real world examples to guide students how to apply the learned cognitive principles to discover the possible conflicts between human cognition and designs and to develop the possible design solutions using adaptive technologies accordingly. Moreover, the joint design project requiring inter-disciplinary knowledge, including Design Cognition, Affective Design, and User Study, allows students to consolidate the learned cognitive principles and reinforce the way of applying cognitive principles into design. Finally, the outcomes of students' joined design project really show that the quality of affect and usability in their products and services are improved.

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In addition to the visual and auditory modalities, future media communication is expected to provide information through the tactile modality. To achieve effective tactile media in daily life settings, it is important to study its representation from the aspects of human cognition and emotion. This study experimentally investigated the effects of visual representation on evaluations of tactile information. We conducted an experiment in which subjects were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of tactile information of foods presented on a monitor after touching them using PHANTOM Omni, a haptical device. Textures (photos or paintings) of the foods and the intensity of force feedback were controlled. The results did not clearly confirm the influences of the visual representation on evaluation of the force feedback, even though it indicated the possibility that force feedback can be more clearly distinguished when the stimuli are represented by paintings rather than by photos.

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The research is a study on design techniques for creating “Expectation” image in product using process. In order to have a better understanding, the product using process was divided in 3 stages: Starting, Development, and Ending. 18 samples were created based on the design technique combinations from previous work. And the samples were tested via Semantic Differential Scale, to investigate the emotional feedback regarding to the expectation image. The testing result was further categorized into 6 groups by a Cluster Analysis. The expected image for using products consists of 3 aspects: “agitated -- calm” aspect for showing the emotional change levels, “ambiguous -- transparent” aspect for delivering the users definite messages and “sequential -- accidental” aspect for predicting the next step. Testing result also shows that samples with associated appearance, simple operation and clear result has the highest scores in “Expecting” (5.35), “Interesting” (5.41), and “Favorable” (5.20) evaluation.

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Perception of visual complexity in textures is very important for visual understanding and visual aesthetic evaluation. In this paper, we propose a new model of estimating subjective visual complexity perception of texture images. Compared with the traditional complexity measures based on information theory and fuzzy theory, the proposed model considers human visual perception, and it predicts the visual complexity of a texture corresponding to the subjective visual impression. Multiple linear regression (MLR) is used as a mapping function to map the relationship between the visual complexity perception and five texture characteristics including regularity, roughness, directionality, density and understandability. F-test and correlation analysis are applied to stimulated data and predicted data. The results of F-test (P < 0.01) prove that the proposed model can significantly predict the visual complexity of a texture, and the correlation coefficient between calculated complexity and subjective complexity (r = 0.951) of the testing textures shows that the results predicted by the proposed model are very close to the visual complexity judged by human subjects.

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The local governments have designated public places as shelters during or after a disaster in Japan. In this study, we conducted residents' attitude survey about emergency evacuation and sheltering behavior in Yokohama. The results of this questionnaire survey showed that residents would choose various public places as shelters. Some of them have not been designated by the municipal government. Almost of residents wanted to evacuate to a nearby site from their houses. The reasons for preferring a particular site were not only geographical location or facilities available at the site but also psychological reasons, such as their familiarity with the site. Furthermore, we conducted a multivariate analysis of the reasons why residents would select a particular place as a shelter and determined the characteristics of parks and municipal schools selected by many residents for evacuation and sheltering behavior. Moreover, the evaluation method of public place for refugees was suggested on the basis of this analysis.

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In this paper, we investigate the key visual factors for cloth texture recognition used in the cross-modal linkage between visual and tactile perception. We conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of changes in the complexity of fabric drape shape and the size of the window for observing the fabric on an observer's ability to identify the fabric. The experiment also studied how the estimation of the light-source position affected the accuracy of an observer's identification of a fabric. The experimental results indicated that correct identification of fabric incrementally increases with changes in window size. When the effect of window size is removed, drape complexity is also found to affect accurate fabric identification. In addition, the results indicated that accurately estimating light positions when observing the erected image in the case of high complexity of fabric drape (Comp.15) was directly related to the number of fabrics that were correctly identified.

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Most kansei studies have focused users' kansei, namely the affect and emotions of users when interacting with a product. With a different perspective on kansei moving from the user to the designer, we aim at studying designers' kansei during the process of designing. In this paper, we examine how external stimuli, like images and sounds, influence the design process and the creation of design concepts. More specifically, we investigated the effect of stimuli on recall of memories and feelings by designers and how these impressions were incorporated in the creation of design concepts. Our findings showed that auditory stimulation supports the generation of design concepts with high-level properties (user experience), as compared to visual stimulation.

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A topic of interest in color research is the exploration of emotional responses to color stimuli, referred to as color emotion. Although some subjects in color research have been well documented, many aspects of the evaluative and descriptive dimensions of color emotion have not been sufficiently studied. In this paper, we measured the emotional states elicited by single color stimuli with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) scale, which consists of valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions of emotional state. To clarify the relationships between color appearance and emotional state (L*, C* and h in CIELCh), we conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) on the empirical data provided by Suk & Irtel (2010) and those provided by the present study. The resulting models for each data set illustrated that emotional states are influenced by color attributes; valence is principally influenced by lightness (L*) and chroma (C*), and arousal is influenced principally by chroma.

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Nowadays, many people want to reduce their fatigue in use of computer devices by improving software. We have already proposed the method that would reduce user's fatigue using color effect in our previous study: the gradual change in background color in certain software was expected to entrain psycho-physiological states of the user. In this study, effectiveness of the method was investigated through experiment with calculation task. We newly developed calculation software that changes its background color gradually. The experiment compared a case of gradually changed color with cases of not changed color. Blue and white were employed as colors in the experiment, and the experiment was conducted with three conditions; gradual change from white to blue, blue, and white. As the indices in the experiment, number of calculation responses, ratio of correct answers, questionnaire with impression for the task, and heartbeat interval were employed. Part of experimental results showed that the change in color elicited higher effects on ratio of correct answers. Furthermore, in the condition with the change in color, larger heartbeat intervals during the task were observed. However, with the condition changing the color, number of responses in the calculation task was smallest. These results showed a possibility that the proposed method make the user calm psycho-physiologically in tasks with the computer software.

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We propose an automated image analysis of facial expressions for measuring interventional effect of diet with respect to the mental aspect. Facial expression analysis that is noninvasive and noncontact with human subjects is promising in the sense that it can measure our natural behaviors due to emotional and biological states safely with low cost for lengthy period of time. This paper shows the analyses on the comparison between before and after the subjects ingest test samples, and also between effects of different test samples with respect to both the outputs from conventional sensors and image analyses of facial muscle activities. The subjects in our experiment (4 young adults, 2 males and 2 females) participated in a randomized and crossed over designed study for two separated experiment days. Water and green tea (250ml, respectively) were used as test samples. The measurements were recorded 1) before the ingestion, 2) 30 minutes after the ingestion, and 3) 60 minutes after the ingestion. During the time between each measurement, the subjects were asked to take an arithmetic mental task (AT) for 20 minutes as a stressor. Our results suggest a possibility that automated image analysis of facial expressions is one of the useful tools for evaluating the changes on mood and stress level affected by foods.

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With increasing global competition, connections among local culture, global market and innovative products in design strategy have become increasingly close. In the global market - local design era, innovative products are not merely desirable for a company but also mandatory for design strategy. To be successful, innovative products must have a clear and significant difference that is related to market need. Furthermore, local features in consumer perception regarding innovation are also important in product design. The main purpose of this paper is to study factors affecting designers' and consumers' perceptions in innovation; these factors are discussed in order to understand differences between designers' and consumers' perceptions of product innovation. Therefore, this paper proposed an approach using MDS analysis to explore the relationship between local features and global market in design strategy. Through the approach, we have been able to merge local culture, innovative design, and global market into design strategy. Based on the MDPREF solution, the main factors affecting subjects' preference evaluation could be identified as: Localization dimension, Glocalzilation and Globalization.

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In this article, we reviewed the transition of designing structure and business content in Japanese electric manufacturers, and simultaneously examined the issue of considerable design management (design decision-making) with the change at the present time. As the result, for two companies that we researched with a preparation of map of design domain, we found that those companies have concentrated on so-called a traditional design work (modeling/direction of concept embodiment) and a development (design) was their main business area among the product development processes during 1970's, but they expanded their business area to both upstream and downstream for product development process while the time has passed to 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's. (Especially the expansion for initial stage of upstream was larger) Furthermore, it was characterized as a conceptual portion for technological area or a level of involvement for initial stage of technological area was principally increased. By expanding the design business area to upstream and downstream of product design development, for a design management issue led by trend of commoditizing mainly for ICT products and particularly a design decision-making issue among other things, we pointed out that early design decision-making was related to early issue finding and solution, and it would not only accelerate management decision, but also contribute for shortening of product development period and product quality improvement.

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In order to expand the scope of the concept of UX (User Experience), authors conducted a research on the descriptive words of various types of experience by introducing a concept of GOB (Goal Oriented Behavior), POB (Process Oriented Behavior) and SOB (State Oriented Behavior) to cover the various ranges of human behavior. From the perspective of usability engineering, achieving the goal (GOB) is the fundamental presupposition in terms of the behavior of the user hence the satisfaction can be regarded as an important measure. In other words, people will be satisfied by achieving the goal in the situation where the usability matters. But the concept of UX is wider than the usability and it was assumed that different words should be used for representing the nature of different types of behavior. A set of descriptive words including the satisfaction was tested for different types of behavior and it was found that different types of experience should be described differently in terms of their pragmatic and hedonic (Kansei) aspects.

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The primary purpose of this paper is to discuss a form of sensibility-focused marketing, called Kansei marketing, from the viewpoint of systems thinking. It is known that systems thinking provides a basic understanding of system dynamics. Because system dynamics is essentially describable in terms of differential equations, it may be treated as a form of complex system. It is shown that the basic behavior involved in Kansei marketing corresponds to that of a small-world network, and therefore, that the behavior involved in Kansei-driven marketing can be explained in terms of complex systems.

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In this study, we propose a method for automatically detecting musical scales from Japanese musical pieces. A scale is a series of musical notes in ascending or descending order, which is an important element for describing the tonal system (Tonesystem) and capturing the characteristics of the music. The study of scale theory has a long history. Many scale theories for Japanese music have been designed up until this point. Out of these, we chose to formulate a scale detection method based on Seiichi Tokawa's scale theories for traditional Japanese music, because Tokawa's scale theories provide a versatile system that covers various conventional scale theories. Since Tokawa did not describe any of his scale detection procedures in detail, we started by analyzing his theories and understanding their characteristics. Based on the findings, we constructed the scale detection method and implemented it in the Java Runtime Environment. Specifically, we sampled 1,794 works from the Nihon Min-yo Taikan (Anthology of Japanese Folk Songs, 1944-1993), and performed the method. We compared the detection results with traditional research results in order to verify the detection method. If the various scales of Japanese music can be automatically detected, it will facilitate the work of specifying scales, which promotes the humanities analysis of Japanese music.

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The museums are educational and transmit the culture. They are the platforms for the public to absorb the culture and knowledge. Cultural products are the main carriers to transmit cultural content. Value of cultural products is the effect of “symbolic resonance”. Therefore, culture includes identifiable, creative and symbolic knowledge. Different from common products, cultural products have the function of culture identity. Cultural factors of the products are based on the modeling, use and marketing appeal. Nowadays, to transmit the cultural information through the products is the modern measure and it can directly approach the users' lives. By designing the products and marketing, the designers deliver the positive living culture to the users. In other words, through design, positive living culture is developed. Thus, how to develop the products with identity in various cultural products of the museums is the motive of this study to explore the strategic development of cultural products.
Quality of cultural products should be controlled by the museums; in 1977, Museum Store Association in U.S. suggested that “the source of products in the museums is the sellers' only responsibility”. Cultural products are part of the museums. Thus, the products sold in the stores must match the purposes of the museums (Barsook, 1990). Besides, the museums should consider the educational function of cultural products. When developing the products, the museums should set up the design strategy, according to the characteristics and positioning of the museums, to develop and execute the products in order to satisfy the consumers' needs and accomplish the goals above. Thus, operation of the museums will be sustainable.

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Corporate design divisions must recognize the sense of value and the way of thinking that society demands in the process of design development. The objective of this study is to clarify (1) the importance of solution design utilizing social design development with value co-creation by users and designers, and (2) a design management method for solution design that incorporates design development of products and services. Analysis using a design management index is presented for today's design field where companies mainly deal with solutions to social concerns.

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We propose here to highlight the benefits of building a framework linking Kansei Design (KD), User Centered Design (UCD) and Eco-design as the correlation between these fields is barely explored at the current time. Therefore we believe Kansei Design could serve the goal of achieving more sustainable products by setting up an accurate understanding of the user in terms of ecological awareness, and consequently enhancing performance in the Eco-design process. At the same time, we will consider the means-end chain approach inspired from Marketing research as it is useful for identifying ecological values, mapping associated functions and defining suitable design solutions. Information gathered will serve as entry data for conducting scenario-based design and supporting the development of an Eco-friendly User Centered Design methodology (EcoUCD).

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In prior research (Reference 1), I surveyed and compared several aspects of the panel evaluation system in today's Japanese, American and European automotive industries, including the operation of the system, the methodology, and the actions taken by companies based on the evaluation results, establishing patterns and clarifying points of difference. In doing so, I uncovered some major companies that had effectively applied panel evaluation systems in their design department which appointed in-house panelists (persons who evaluate designs during their development) and carried out their decision-making with few errors. Based on these findings, I received the cooperation of a Japanese automaker (X Corporation) to participate in the workings of an improved panel evaluation system in actual automotive design development. Specific improvement measures included modifications to the panelist selection methodology and training of panelists to think ahead more effectively than average users, as well as a new verification system and new evaluation criteria to guide panelists in making more reliable evaluations. This led to improved reliability of evaluation results and full application of the results in the decision-making for the actual design. This paper summarizes the process in the form of a case study.

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In this research, we noted that fuzzy distortion is a result of the uniqueness of handwork. Initially, we attempted to analyze the effect of distorted characteristics on evaluation by conducting comparative experiments with hand drawn stripes and computer drawn stripes. Fundamentally, we were interested in understanding the contrast between preferences in textile pattern design in Japan and Finland from the point of view of both consumers and producers. In addition, we were curious about the recent presence of a Finnish fabric brand in the Japanese market. The framework of our research included comparative design experiments that were conducted in Japan and Finland involving people from the design field. The experiments were conducted using six stripe patterns that were either hand drawn or computer drawn in three different levels of thickness. For evaluation purposes, we used 14 semantic differential pairs on a 7-point Likert scale. We analyzed the results by a three-way ANOVA. As a result, we discovered that there were significant differences between Finnish and Japanese participants. This indicated that the evaluation structure in textile design can be different in the two countries. Throughout this research, we observed culture-based differences in trend evaluation. We also found differences in features of hand-drawn patterns.

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