The aesthetic pleasure in design scale

Abstract

There is a lack of consistency regarding the scales used to measure aesthetic pleasure within design. They are often chosen ad hoc or adopted from other research fields without being validated for designed artifacts. Moreover, many scales do not measure aesthetic pleasure in isolation, but instead include its determinants (e.g., novelty). Therefore, we developed a new scale to measure aesthetic pleasure and included scales to measure its known determinants for discriminant validity purposes, which automatically led to validating these determinants as well. In the exploratory phase, we identified highly reliable items representative of aesthetic pleasure and its determinants across product categories. In the validation phase, we confirmed these findings across different countries (Australia, the Netherlands, and Taiwan). The final scale consists of 5 items, "beautiful," "attractive," "pleasing to see," "nice to see," and "like to look at," that together reliably capture the construct of aesthetic pleasure. Several recommendations are formulated regarding the application of this scale in design studies and beyond.