Abstract
The present study sought to expand upon the traditional role of human factors in assessing the efficiency with which users interact with controls to include the sensory quality of controls, in this case, clothes washing machine rotary selector knobs. Thirty seven participants operated and compared the selector knobs on nine clothes washing machines, providing similarity judgments, pleasantness ratings, and verbal comments regarding most liked and least liked features. A multidimensional scaling analysis revealed that participants perceived differences among knobs along two sensory dimensions: tactile feel (smooth versus distinct detents) and the loudness of the detent. Pleasantness was optimized at a medium value of detent loudness, but was constant across levels of tactile feel. Tactile feel, therefore, defines an ideal dimension along which to perceptually differentiate knobs for branding purposes without negatively impacting perceived pleasantness.
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