Design awareness and purchase intention: an item response theory approach

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of design awareness on consumers’ purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach The experiment consisted of showing a new beer package design to 185 participants who evaluated it using a self‐administered questionnaire. Findings Using an Item Response Theory approach, results show that there are two dimensions of consumer design awareness: basic design and differential design. These findings are, to some extent, consistent with the theoretical discussion within design literature. Moreover, a multiple regression model estimates the effect of both dimensions on consumers’ purchase intention, and the paper concludes that both dimensions have a similar effect (p<0.05). The sign of the effects are consistent with the theoretical discussion. Practical implications The design of new products must consider attributes associated to the basic and practical use of a product as well as those attributes that mark a comparative difference in the product cate...