Abstract
Touch/feel quality of interior material is a critical element of customer's perception of overall product quality. Manufactures are increasingly interested in the affective evaluation as the perception of quality is heavily related to customer's feeling toward the product. Surface material quality is characterized by complex touch-feel sensations. In this study, 30 participants rated their affective reactions (how pleasant I feel) to surface materials of 30 different automobile interiors. Four categories of the material characteristics are used in the evaluation; crash pad plastic, steering wheel plastic, wood grain and metal grain. Consistent with previous research, it was found that both the visual quality and touch/feel quality influenced customer's perception of the material quality. Variables related to touch/feel quality is structured as ‘an affective quality checklist’ for automobile interiors to be used by a trim engineering team of an automobile manufacturer.
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