A Study of Style Recognition and the Operation of Products in Which Ming-Style Chairs are Used as Examples

In this study Ming-style chairs are used as examples to investigate the critical factors constituting the style of products. In an experiment, subjects were asked to compare varied pairs of Ming-style chairs. These comparisons were then analyzed by using the methods of multidimensional scaling and multiple regression analysis. The results show that the perception of Ming-style chairs between designer subjects and nondesigner subjects are similar and that the three main dimensions constituting the subjects' perceptual space are ‘elementary feature’, ‘emotional image’, and ‘use feeling’. There exist some common critical elementary features among Ming-style chairs. The degree of style similarity (being perceived as the same style) between a pair of chairs will increase with an increase in the number of critical features shared. The influential powers to this perception of similarity are different among these features.