Common to both the Value and the Quality perspectives is the notion of Desirability or Attractiveness. If not exactly one in the same, these are both highly related to the construct of Appeal, the overall attribution of goodness that a person associates with a product.
Appeal, as defined by Hassenzahl (2004), is the combined effect of usefulness and usability, plus attractive qualities such as novelty, surprise, fun, visual attractiveness, perceived high ratings on adoption factors.
Adjectives that describe an appealing product are:
- Pleasant
- Pleasant
- Good
- Inviting
- Attractive
- Motivating
- Desirable
This is very important, as appeal is emerging as one of the top known reasons for why people decide to buy or adopt new products. Appeal is usually more important than usability and is sometimes more important than usefulness. Indeed, one of the primary problems with physical products, web sites and online applications is that their ‘look' is either outdated or just plain ugly and unappealing.
Most people think of appeal as something that is totally subjective and cannot be measured. This was true until fairly recently. There are methods, adopted from the worlds of academic research and urban design, have been shown to reliably measure product appeal.
Enragers: It only takes one!
Just as important as appeal as a product attribute is its opposite—disgust or even rage. Bad experiences with a product chase people away permanently. It only takes one thing about your product that fails to meet customer expectations to the degree that they are angered. Once that happens, you've lost them forever.
