Visual Brand Language of Consumer Electronics

Hi! I am doing a little study in the Visual Brand Language of consumer electronics.

Could you please look at the following photos and tell me what your first impression is (ignoring the features).

Thanks in advance!

(I hope surveys are allowed on Core77, if not, please let me know and I will delete this thread.)

Edit (New Version)
http://bit.ly/1X52EnR

I wanted to do the survey but realized that products are in there that I work on so my answered might be too biased :wink:

Hahaha, how cool is that :stuck_out_tongue: You are still free to fill it in though, it is just a little side project. I really enjoy the rebranding of Logitech is going though at the moment, nice job :slight_smile:

Thanks!
Yeah, seeing it in this line up, I have to say, I am pretty pleased with the way our products look today compared to the competition in the PC peripheral space.

Yeah, a lot of companies in this space have absolutely zero direction across all their lines. And it feels outdated or too business oriented for home use. It is nice to see Logitech take some time to rethink about their branding. How much of the new line are done in-house? And which studios has worked on this line? I know the MNML and Feiz Design ones, but are there any more? Just curious :slight_smile:

Logitech has a lot of legacy which is why the re-positioning is both exciting and challenging but definitely necessary.
On the one hand, we need to refresh the product line with a fresher, more contemporary approach but don’t want to lose important core customers in the process.

We are still working with a few external agencies but are continuously building our own in-house team. So at the moment, we designers in our HQ here in Lausanne split our time developing our own designs and managing external consultancies.

We also continue to collaborate with Design Partners, who have been instrumental in the Logitech design language for years.
On the UE side, we have been working with NonObject in Palo Alto, which has proven to be a very successful partnership.

Over the years , Logitech has worked with many agencies but Feiz and MNML are newer additions and examples of where the brand is headed.

Hi BKHW,

I think you should consider refining your survey design somewhat. Here’s the current issues I see with getting the best responses/data possible:

_for each “impression” there are 4 product, yet 5 columns for response: the “mapping” here is broken; which column goes with which product? Consider numbering the products to align with the numbered columns for each “impression”, and eliminating one column (or adding one product)

_color has an enormous effect on emotional response: some of your photography is in color, some in black and white: this will influence response A LOT. Perhaps you’ve done this on purpose . . .?

_I get that you’re trying to optimize the space available, but having the products in different relative scales makes it more difficult to evaluate; maybe not for folks on the boards, we can deal with that, but if you’re looking to get responses from non-industry people/general consumers who would be purchasing and using these products, then you should consider putting everything in the proper, relative scale so it’s easier it understand what they are

_speaking of “what they are”, it’ll be difficult for non-industry people to know that the third item from the left in each of the “impressions” is a speaker, and even though the other images are okay at letting us know what the products are, I think the classic three-quarter view for each of them would be more successful at communication

_I think getting data on ugly/beautiful and low end/high end is very doable with this survey, but getting data on reliable/unreliable and easy to use/difficult to use is much more questionable without aligning those some detailed qualitative feedback: (“why is it unreliable? Please explain . . .”)

_finally, I would consider reducing the overall numbers and types of products that are shown at one time. You’ll get much more solid data if you start slowly, comparing mice to mice, speakers to speakers, etc. Consider also “normalizing”: if you’re interested in getting data about how FORM dictates these characteristics you’re interested in, make everything the same color and finish. If you’re interested in getting data about how COLOR or FINISH influences, then show all the same products with the same form, but changing color or finish . . . (you get the idea)

_oh yeah, one other thing (sorry!), you might consider hosting the survey in English (if you’re interested in getting English-speaking user feedback), even though the body of the survey is in English, some respondents might be confused or put off by the “wrapping” in Dutch.

Overall, I think it’s a really intersting thing you’re going for, but I think it needs refinement and a lot more thought towards following good survey design practices before you can trust what it’s going to output.

@bepster Thanks for the info, cool to know :slight_smile:

@jacob Thanks for the detailed feedback Jacob, appreciated :slight_smile:

(Colums) The columns are not rated per each of the four products, but the whole collection. If this is not clear, it is my fault, will need to rethink about it.

(Colors or B&W) Yes, I want to test the whole CMF. I wanted to see if colors are rated higher on the Ugly/Beautiful scale and lower on the Unreliable/Reliable scale, an assumption I had.

(Number of products) Yes, you make a very good point. When I look at the scoring they average a bit out. And I think this and the scale is the fault of it. I might make a new survey with just one product.

(Dutch) Ah, I did not know that. It is fixed now :slight_smile:

I just did this survey but I must admit it took me a few minutes to figure out the mapping. Good Luck.

Oh, yeah, I see it now, the classic scale response. I totall missed that. In a case like this, you should include clear instructions to the survey respondant, for example: “On a scale of 1 - 5, where 1=Ugly, and 5=Beautiful, where would you rate the entire collection of four products above?”

Make it PAINFULLY clear (while retaining ease of use and digestion - writing a tome that is comprehensive about every possible outcome does not work, because “amount of stuff” works against you). One of the most valuable things I learned in my former profession as a sign painter: people don’t read things, and when they do, they get it all wrong because they’ll only read partial things, think they know “how it ends”, assume they know the entire message when they don’t, etc. - as the person with the job of clear communication, you can’t control those things, but you CAN control the clarity and brevity and usability of your message through very well thought-out layout, copy editing, type choice, contrast in size, placement, form, etc.

Overall, you’re lacking in instruction and guidelines:
For example, don’t label the collections “First Impression”. This is an instruction, not a name. Make clear what are instructions and what is nomenclature and what is neither. Instead label it something like “Collection 1”, and then, if you’re looking for first impressions, say something like “please rate these according to your first [initial] [gut] [etc] impressions”.
Also, you’ve included instructions in your original post that aren’t included in the survey (the part about “ignoring the features”). You shouldn’t rely on external instructions at all: they should be included as a component of the survey, to make sure people don’t miss or forget (they will anyway sometimes, but you just have to make sure you do the best you can and optimize with the assumption that you can make no assumptions).

Regarding the colors and your theories, you have too many variables right now to arrive at any info on that; you’d have to pare down the survey. And (spoiler alert): your theories are correct. All you have to do is to design your survey so that nobody can poke holes in it and claim that the data isn’t valid because of your methodology and design.

Another thing to consider, especially when you’ve got a lot of “stimuli” (as you do): you want to rotate the order in which the pictures and words (the stimuli) are exposed to the survey takers. There’s a thing called “order bias”; where the order that you show your stuff affects the outcomes. You can never get rid of order bias, but you can spread it out evenly so that it doesn’t affect one set of things more than another. Survey Monkey probably has a feature that allows you to do this. So if you’ve got five collections, the order might follow this pattern:
1,2,3,4,5 (first survey taker)
2,3,4,5,1 (second survey taker)
3,4,5,1,2 (third survey taker)
etc. until you get to the original order, and then you repeat the entire thing.
There are scenarios where this doen’t work that easily, and you have to be more specific about it, such as when the order of stimuli is important to the logic of the survey and how the respondants understand, but that’s another story, and also starting to go beyond my limited knowledge of how to design a survey.

Hope this helps! And good luck and have fun with it!

[ Deleted ]

Hi bkhw,

I did the survey but couldn’t figure out how you would get any useful info from it. I personally think it is way too shallow to use as a guide, which would mean that you might be led to the wrong assumptions. Doing a survey like this needs good preparation, it really is a science! I learned quite a bit from Jacob’s replies just now.

I know you said this was just a ‘little study’ but I would still take the answers you get here and see if you can make a better survey. Doing these well is be a useful skill for a product designer.

Good luck!

I remember how difficult it was getting people to take my survey when I was at University, so I filled it in for you as well :slight_smile:
Best of luck and post the next steps in your project as well!

Just a quick FYI - I took the survey a few days ago and wanted to give you just one piece of critique;
Each grouping should either be on a separate loading page or spaced so that each grouping hits above the fold, requiring a scroll or a click of a ‘next’ tab to show the next grouping - seeing the next and previous groupings while considering the one you’re concentrating on skews the results.

Thanks for all the critique :slight_smile: I will rethink about it and see how I can approach it better.

I edited the survey:
http://bit.ly/1X52EnR