Kansei Analysis of Liquid Laundry Detergent Bottle's Shape and Packages Design

Nowadays, there are various bottles and packages of liquid laundry detergents in Japan. Many companies have tried to create not only more powerful detergency of the products but also the new value of design in the laundry detergent bottle and package. And our lifestyle is changing like an increasing nuclear family and single life and enjoying a shopping using the internet in recent. Since selecting a detergent might be linked depending on such lifestyle, we need to survey the relationship between the design of detergents such as a bottle shape or package and the user's lifestyle. Therefore, we focused on the shape of bottles and packages of liquid laundry detergents in this study. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the difference in impressions of the bottle's shapes and packages of laundry liquid detergent based on Kansei engineering.So, we have experimented with ten bottles and packages using the ranking evaluation method to clarify the relationship between participants' decision to want to use bottles and the following items; 1) Luxury feeling level, 2) Easiness level to grip, 3) Fit feeling level to the laundry space, 4) Easiness level to store the bottle up, 5) Fleeing level of detergency power, and 6)Preference level to want to use. As a result, the item of "Preference level to want to use" had a stronger relationship with the bottle's packages of liquid laundry detergents than the bottle's shapes concerned with the usability of liquid laundry detergents. Even though the handle helps grip the bottles, participants preferred these bottles that do not have any handles with a luxury feel. Moreover, for the "Preference level to want to use," the Kansei factors of the bottle's shape, such as "Luxury feeling level" and "Fit feeling level to the laundry space," are more critical than the Usability factors, such as "Easiness level to grip" and "Easiness level to store up." Also, in the bottle packages situation, the item "Preference level to want to use" had a more substantial relationship with the item of "Luxury feeling level" than "Fleeing level of detergency power." This "Preference level to want to use" and packages differ depending on the participants' lifestyle, such as 'living style' and 'number of washes clothes per week.' For example, the participants who live alone want to use the bottle with a luxury feeling and easy to store. In contrast, the participants who live with family want to use the bottle with a luxury feeling, which fits their laundry space. These participants who live with family showed a similar tendency as the number of washes increased. Moreover, there are different characteristics in evaluating liquid laundry detergent depending on each one's lifestyle. Also, these results mean we need to survey more the condition of laundry space in Japan to propose a new bottle package design as future work.