An Analysis Method of Anticipated UX Evoked by Packaging Design Using the Evaluation Grid Method: A Case of the Analysis of Packages of Boxed Flour Confections and Sunscreen

Abstract

When considering the chronological order of product use, package design is mainly related to forming the anticipated UX, which predicts and imagines the experience gained from interacting with the product. However, in previous research, no method has been established for specifically evaluating the anticipated UX, and there is little knowledge about the relationship between packaging design and anticipated UX. This research aimed to examine a method to investigate the anticipated UX that users gain from packaging design in an exploratory and qualitative manner. We adopted the evaluation grid method, an interview and analysis technique that can clarify the evaluation structure that people have for the target of evaluation, and examined the structure of the design elements of the packaging and the appeal and sense of expectation that can be gained from them. We selected 20 products from each of two product groups for evaluation as examples: boxed flour confections and sunscreen. Ten people participated in the grid evaluation method survey for each product, and an evaluation structure diagram was created to summarize the results for each group of products. For flour confections packaging, the focus was on whether people could imagine what the taste would be like, and for sunscreen packaging, the focus was on concepts related to the performance and effectiveness of the sunscreen. These results show that it is possible to grasp the anticipated UX based on the user’s words using the evaluation grid method. The results of this research will contribute to establishing a method for examining anticipated UX and will be useful for achieving packaging design that enhances UX. In addition, the findings of the analysis cases presented in this research can be used to improve UX in the packaging of sweets and sunscreen.

1. Introduction

1.1. Importance of Anticipated UX

Previous research on packaging design has mainly focused on breaking down the design elements of packages (such as color, text, and images) individually and examining the impact of these elements on specific consumer responses (such as various impressions and purchasing intentions) [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Such research has been carried out in the fields of marketing and Kansei engineering, but there has been little discussion from the perspective of user experience (UX), which has attracted attention in recent years for the development of products and services.

To create attractive products, it is necessary to design for UX based on the ‘experience value’ that users gain through their overall experience of using the product rather than considering factors such as functionality and appearance individually [7,8,9]. In UX design, the entire interaction between the user and the product/system is considered, including the period before use (anticipated UX), immediately after use or during use (temporary UX), reflection after use (episodic UX), and comprehensive recollection of the entire period of use (cumulative UX) [10]. Of these, anticipated UX is the most strongly influenced by the packaging design of a product, as packaging allows the user to imagine the experience before using the product and to feel anticipation and expectation about its use.

There are also suggestions that expectations and recall before use are more important than the actual situation during use [11,12,13], and in considering the overall experience of use, the anticipated UX before use is important. In fact, many previous studies have pointed out the effects of expectations and predictions about future experiences. Wilson and Gilbert [14] focused on the prediction of emotions for future events and suggested that predicted emotions may be stronger and more persistent than actual emotions. Baumeister et al. [15] suggest that predictions of future experiences and emotions affect current behavior and subjective well-being. Kujala and Miron-Shatz [16] analyzed the impact of expectations before use on satisfaction ratings during use, focusing on the experience of using mobile phones for five months, and found that the first 2–3 days of use are strongly influenced by pre-use expectations rather than satisfaction. Their results also suggest that expectations impact the overall evaluation over a certain period. Raita and Oulasvirta [17] investigated the impact of reading positive or negative reviews beforehand on the usability evaluation. The results showed that the group of users who had read positive reviews beforehand and had high expectations rated the product significantly higher than the group of users who had not, indicating that high expectations beforehand have an impact on subsequent evaluations of the product. This kind of research shows the importance of considering anticipated UX.

With this in mind, it is important to consider how the packaging design of a product can influence the experience that users anticipate. For example, Song et al. [18] discuss the importance of considering users’ emotional experiences in packaging design and propose a design method for this purpose. Yoon et al. [19] analyze the series of user experiences from before purchase, to opening the package, and long-term use after that, and this research also shows the importance of the timing of the anticipated UX, including the timing of package opening. According to Gil-Pérez et al. [20], it is thought that if the image of a product on the packaging is different, the emotions that consumers have towards that product will also differ, and this will also affect their purchasing intentions. Considering the above, we thought it is important to consider UX (especially anticipated UX) when considering package design.

1.2. Current State of Anticipated UX in Packaging Design

While there are easy-to-use methods in the field of human-centered design for the other types of UX, such as usability testing for temporary UX, there are few analysis methods or examples of analysis for anticipated UX. Packaging is thought to have the role of providing users with the anticipated UX of the product. Still, many studies on packaging design have not focused much on users’ subjective experiences. In many studies of packaging design, the approach taken is to examine whether differences in specific elements of packaging design affect consumer preferences, purchase intentions, or the level at which certain emotions are evoked. For example, in relatively recent packaging design research, the following effects have been statistically analyzed: the effect of the surface finish (matte or gloss) on consumer preference and purchase intention [21], the effect of packaging design simplicity on brand reliability [22], the effect of the typeface design on food package selection intention [23], the effect of the color and shape of design elements on coffee expectation and evaluation after tasting [24,25], and the effect of the color combination on the emotional response [26]. All of these are hypothesis-testing approaches in which the levels of each element of the packaging design are manipulated and compared based on themes selected by the researcher, and the effects of this on consumer response are quantified.

While this approach has the advantage of being able to quantitatively verify the relationship between the elements of packaging design and consumer response, it is difficult to grasp the qualitative content of the experience and the expectations that consumers gain through the packaging design. When studying the subjective experience of UX, it is not possible to describe everything using only quantitative verification results; it is also necessary to conduct research to explore what kind of experience consumers specifically gain.

1.3. Objective and Approach

Therefore, in this study, rather than simply investigating the degree of expectations and purchase intentions, the aim was to examine a method to investigate the anticipated UX that users gain from packaging designs in an exploratory and qualitative manner. As a method for investigating the content of anticipated UX in an exploratory manner, we adopted the evaluation grid method, which is an interview and analysis technique that can clarify the evaluation structure that people have for the evaluation target and examine the structure of the design elements of the package and the appeal and sense of expectation that can be gained from them. To examine the applicability of the evaluation grid method for the anticipated UX analysis, we used boxed flour confections and sunscreen as examples. We selected the confections as products with strong hedonic attributes and the sunscreen as products with strong practical attributes.

The evaluation grid method was originally proposed in the fields of architecture and environmental psychophysiology as a method that could be used to evaluate spaces and environments, based on the Repertory Grid Method [27] in the field of clinical psychology, which was proposed by Kelly [28]. This method aims to extract the parts related to evaluating spaces and products from the diverse cognitive structures unique to each individual, based on the Personal Construct Theory. This method is also used to understand user needs in product development and marketing. For example, Park et al. [29] used the evaluation grid method to analyze the UX of mobile apps. Therefore, we used the evaluation grid method to analyze the anticipated UX obtained from the package, as we thought it would be easy to understand the subjective experiences of various users. In addition, the evaluation grid method allows us to grasp the hierarchical structure of users’ evaluations of the target theme, so we can understand the causal relationships between the higher- and lower-level concepts that make up the anticipated UX. In other words, by focusing on these relationships, we can speculate on the relationship between what kind of package elements will lead to what kind of experience. This would be useful for creating package design concepts.

This research suggests using the evaluation grid method to examine the anticipated UX that can be obtained from a package. As we have seen, it will contribute to the construction of a new method for considering package design guidelines from the perspective of the anticipated UX, which has not been considered much until now.

1.4. Structure of This Paper

Up to this point, this chapter has discussed the importance of examining anticipated UX in package design and the current situation for doing so. In light of this situation, it has also been shown that the purpose of this research is to examine methods for investigating the anticipated UX using the evaluation grid method. For this purpose, this study investigated the anticipated UX using the evaluation grid method for two product groups and clarified its applicability. In Section 2, we describe the survey method using the evaluation grid method for two product groups that were actually analyzed as examples. In Section 3, we show the evaluation structure diagram obtained from the evaluation grid method and consider the findings regarding anticipated UX that can be read from it in Section 4. In addition, the validity of using the evaluation grid method in investigating the anticipated UX was also discussed. Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

The survey participants included ten people for each product group (5 men and 5 women aged 20 to 26). Based on snowball sampling, we selected participants who had knowledge or interest in design, asked them about their interest in flour confection and sunscreen, and recruited participants so that there were equal numbers of men and women in each product group.

It is difficult to calculate the sample size of survey participants in advance, as this is a qualitative approach. In qualitative research, the adequacy of the sample size is discussed in terms of whether it can be judged that theoretical saturation has been reached. However, in this study, the minimum number of participants was determined based on the perspective of examining the feasibility of using the evaluation grid method, with reference to other studies that have used the evaluation grid method [30]. In addition, the attributes of the participants (age, gender, experience of using related products, preferences, etc.) may also affect the survey results. However, this study aimed not to analyze the differences due to these user attributes but to examine what kind of findings could be obtained when qualitatively investigating anticipated UX using the evaluation grid method, so we decided not to control the user attributes actively.

The purpose and content were explained before the experiment, and informed consent was obtained in writing in advance. In addition, approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology, Osaka Metropolitan University, for the implementation of this survey (Approval No.: 24-22).

2.2. Examination of Anticipated UX

In this study, we used the evaluation grid method [28] to examine the evaluation structure of the survey of participants’ sense of expectation evoked by the packaging design. The evaluation grid method is a method for clarifying the value evaluation structure that people have for the survey target (presented stimulus) through a laddering interview, and as a result of the implementation, an evaluation structure diagram expressed in a hierarchical structure is obtained. In this study, we created an evaluation structure diagram from the perspective of ‘what kind of appeal is felt when the package is seen or touched’ before opening the package and considered this to be the anticipated UX evoked by the packaging design. In creating the evaluation structure diagram, we used the evaluation structure visualization (ESV) system developed by the Kwansei Gakuin Institute of Kansei Value Creation.

2.3. Materials

In this study, we decided to focus on two products based on the categories used in a previous study that analyzed product UX [31]: boxed flour confections, which have hedonic attributes, and sunscreen, which has practical attributes. When considering the characteristics of products that create a better UX, we thought that the anticipated UX characteristics would differ for each of the practical and hedonic attributes, as they are classified as such [9].

For sunscreen, we selected 20 products with the same type of UV protection and active ingredients, and for flour confections, we selected 20 products that were boxed flour confections, such as cookies. At this time, we selected products with as much variation in color, material, and size as possible so that the survey participants could evaluate them from various perspectives.

2.4. Procedure

The evaluation grid method was carried out in the following steps. The laddering interview was conducted for either sunscreen or snacks in the following steps, and an evaluation structure diagram was created [32]. During the laddering interview, the interview was conducted while creating and visualizing the structure diagram for each participant using the evaluation structure visualization system. The survey was conducted with 10 people for each product group, for a total of 20 people. The survey time was approximately 2 h per person (per product group).

(1)

We presented all 20 of the selected products and asked the participants to divide the products into four groups, from the most attractive to the least attractive, based on whether they felt attracted to them or not;

(2)

When comparing the group that felt the least attracted (fourth) to the group that felt the second least attracted (third), we asked the participants to come up with as many reasons as they could for classifying each group. The items they came up with at this time were used as the original evaluation items. The original evaluation items did not have to apply to all the products in the group, and it was fine if they only applied to specific products;

(3)

Ladder-down and ladder-up interviews were conducted for each original evaluation item. In the ladder-down interviews, we asked about the objective judgments and physical conditions that were the underlying concepts of the original evaluation items and what caused them. In the ladder-up interviews, we asked about the abstract and psychological values that were the higher-order concepts of the original evaluation items;

(4)

Once the laddering interviews for all of the original evaluation items had been completed, the procedure was repeated for the second and subsequent groups (groups 3 and 4) and for the first and subsequent groups (groups 2 to 4), comparing them with the groups that had received higher evaluations.

3. Results

The evaluation structure diagrams of 10 people for each product group were combined to create a structure diagram of the anticipated UX for each product group. When combining the structure diagrams of the 10 people, if the connections between all the items are shown as they are, the network becomes too complex to interpret. Therefore, we calculated the Katz Centrality based on the function of ESV, which is one of the centrality indices in networks, and adjusted it so that it would be possible to balance the variation of evaluation terms and the complexity of the interpretable network and then drew and interpreted the structural diagram. The left side of the evaluation structural diagram is the higher-order concept, and the right side is the lower-order concept. The positioning of the nodes avoids overlapping the labels, so the position and distance between the nodes do not have any meaning. The results of creating the evaluation structure diagrams for each product group are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

4. Discussion

4.1. Analysis of Boxed Flour Confections Packaging

Figure 1 shows a diagram of the aggregated evaluation structure for flour confections. The two highest-level concepts were ‘I feel like buying it’ and ‘I want to give it to someone’. The concept ‘I feel like buying it’ was connected to ‘It has a luxurious feel’, and between these two concepts, ‘It’s friendly’ was seen. There was also a hierarchical structure between ‘It is friendly’ and ‘I want to pick it up’, and from these, it is thought that a balance between friendliness and a luxurious feel may lead to an increase in purchase intention.

For packaging that gives a sense of luxury, there was a connection with packaging designs that use a small number of colors or colors that give a sense of coolness, such as silver or blue. Furthermore, for packaging that has a pattern or texture with bumps and hollows when picked up, the texture feels good, and designs with a Japanese feel, such as brush-stroke writing or Japanese patterns, give a sense of careful Japanese design, which gives a good impression of the quality of the product and leads to a sense of luxury. We think that these design elements that give a sense of luxury are connected to the evaluation that people feel when buying familiar Western sweets.

Next, ‘I want to give it to someone’ is connected to ‘It looks delicious’, and the subordinate concepts of this are ‘It has a luxurious feel’ and ‘It makes me excited’. From these, we can think that people want to give things with a luxurious feel in the packaging design or things that make you imagine the deliciousness of the sweets from the package to the person you are giving it to. In addition, the evaluation structure diagram shows that designs that convey a sense of familiarity, designs that use bright colors, and designs where the front of the box containing the product is eye-catching create a sense of excitement and anticipation when the product is picked up.

Okaze et al. [33] analyzed the communication effects of food packaging and found that novelty, familiarity, luxury, and sophistication influence consumers’ purchase decisions. Maeda et al. [34] also found that the elements of luxury and sophistication, novelty, and familiarity are important for chocolate packaging and that the overall evaluation of these factors is related to consumers’ desire to purchase the product. In similar research to this study, the importance of a sense of luxury and familiarity has also been pointed out, so there is a certain degree of validity to the aforementioned findings obtained from the evaluation grid method in this study.

In addition, the sub-concept ‘It looks delicious’ includes ‘I can imagine the taste’, which is linked to the item ‘It reminds me of dairy products’. Considering the results of each participant’s survey, there were many cases where the design of the package, with illustrations or logos of dairy cows or cheese or designs using blue or yellow, enabled people to imagine the taste of dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese, and they felt attracted to them. This suggests that looking at the package can have the effect of increasing expectations about the taste of the product and stimulating the appetite. The ability ‘I can imagine the taste’ was also linked to ‘the contents of the product are easy to understand’. This is also thought to be related to the ‘It reminds me of dairy products’ concept mentioned earlier. It is thought that products that clearly state the place of production, those that have images or illustrations of the contents of the product, and those that clearly show the ingredients of flour confections are likely to be expected to be delicious if they contain butter, as they are from famous production areas.

However, considering the findings of previous research on food packaging [34,35,36], the impression of food packaging may be influenced by the consumer’s previous eating experiences and sense of taste. Considering this, the findings of this study on “imagining the taste” may be limited to the participants in this survey. In this study, we did not investigate the participants’ food-related experiences or their preferences regarding taste. Still, if we were to examine anticipated UX with food packaging, we would probably obtain more refined results by considering these aspects.

4.2. Analysis of Sunscreen Packaging

Figure 2 shows a diagram of the aggregated evaluation structure for sunscreen. The top-level concept in the diagram is ‘it looks like it could be a good sunscreen’, and a subordinate concept of this is ‘looks like a sunscreen’. It is thought that many users anticipate the functional benefits of a product if they are able to recognize what it is (e.g., a sunscreen) from its packaging. Products that have the characteristics of sunscreen can be identified from the sub-concepts in the structural diagram, such as ‘performance is displayed on it’ and ‘oval-shaped cylinder’ (i.e., a container with rounded corners). Also, products with ‘Logo of the sun on it’ were also mentioned. The fact that these elements are strongly connected to the item ‘the contents of the product seem to be important’ suggests that people felt that products with a packaging design that clearly shows their practical effectiveness are attractive. The connection between ‘performance is displayed on it’ and ‘reliable’ also suggests that performance information is one of the factors that influences the sense of trust that the product can prevent sunburn.

Jeong et al. [37] conducted a survey of shampoo package design among Japanese and Korean consumers and found that the quality of the shampoo was the most critical factor in selecting a package. Although there are differences between sunscreen and shampoo, the results show that, as in this study, the practical quality of the product is emphasized in similar practical cosmetics. From this, the top-level concept of sunscreen package expressed in this study has similarities with previous studies.

Next, the connection between ‘the brand name is emphasized’ and ‘sophisticated design’ suggests that the characteristics of the brand are positively received when the package is perceived as having a sophisticated design. From the diagram, we can see that the refined design is one for which ‘the capacity is not too big’, it has a ‘smooth bottle’, and it has a ‘matte finish’. These designs are linked to the higher-level concepts of ‘looks luxurious’, ‘reliable’, and ‘looks mature’.

There is no link to the highest-level concept of ‘it looks like it could be a good sunscreen’, but there is a link to the higher-level concept of ‘easy to carry around’. This is divided into two lower-level concepts of ‘I want to use it every day’ and ‘can be used in public’. In the case of ‘I want to use it every day’, the physical attributes are related to ‘long and thin shape’ and ‘oval-shaped cylinder’, and when you consider this together with the participants’ self-reflection reports, it seems that these shapes are attractive because they are easy to put in a bag. Furthermore, from the connection with “Looks like a sunscreen”, it is thought that it is important to be able to recognize it as sunscreen at a glance and pick it up quickly, especially because it is used every day.

The connection between ‘can be used in public’ and ‘mature’, ‘stylish’, and ‘looks luxurious’ shows that people are also conscious of the appearance of the product, as well as its practicality. When reapplying the sunscreen, people will be looking at the packaging, so it is thought that they will want to carry something that looks elegant and of good quality.

Tobitani et al. [38] analyzed Japanese cosmetic packaging, as in this study, and examined the factors that affect the impression of luxury, using Japanese university students as participants. In their study, although there was no mention of the correspondence with physical attributes, they reported that the impressions related to luxury included “luxury”, “elegance”, “high degree of completion”, “harmonious”, and “pleasant”. These concepts, such as “elegance” and “high degree of completion”, are thought to be particularly related to the “sophisticated design” expressed in this study. Similar concepts and impressions have been confirmed in products like those in this study, and the concepts above that were obtained in this study can also be said to be valid. On the other hand, this study suggests not only these psychological concepts but also the relationship with attributes that may be related to them, and this point is probably the advantage of this method.

4.3. Overall Discussion

In both the flour confections and sunscreen packaging, there were many items related to prediction and imagination of the main function and experience. For flour confections packaging, there were items related to imagining what the taste would be like, and for sunscreen packaging, there were items related to the performance and effects of the sunscreen. From this, it was reconfirmed that in packaging design, it is important to consider the anticipated UX perspective of what kind of experience can be had rather than simply pursuing aesthetic design.

In addition, concepts related to ‘luxury’ and ‘product-like’ were seen in all cases. Although only two types of products were targeted in this study, it is suggested that these elements are common to obtaining an attractive anticipated UX. When we focus on the differences between sweets and sunscreen, we see that sunscreen, which we thought had stronger practical attributes, had more functional items and items related to how to use it. For products with strong practical attributes, it is likely that these aspects can be easily recalled, making them more attractive.

The items expressed in the above figures and discussed in this chapter are based on the subjective impressions of each survey participant, and it is not easy to define and understand their content accurately here. However, as discussed so far, it was possible to interpret, to some extent, the connections between the lower-level and higher-level concepts in each product group. From this, we thought that the anticipated UX felt by users from the packaging of each product group discussed in this study was able to be grasped using the evaluation grid method. In this study, we did not investigate satisfaction, purchase intention, loyalty, etc., so it is difficult to discuss the good or bad design from a marketing perspective, but in all the product groups, specific package elements related to the anticipated UX were revealed. In the future, if the relationship between these design elements and the anticipated UX can be confirmed through controlled experiments, etc., the validity of this method can be verified more.

When the findings of this study are compared with existing UX frameworks, for example, when applied to Norman’s three processing levels [7], many of the items seem to anticipate the visceral and behavioral levels. These items are experiences that can be easily imagined from the appearance of the package. However, there were also items related to how people around you see you, such as ’Can be used in public’ and ’Looks mature’ for sunscreen, and these could be items that anticipate the reflective level. Also, in light of the model proposed by Hassenzahl [39], items related to both the practical and hedonic attributes were seen. In addition, the sub-concepts of hedonic attributes also included a wide range of elements related to stimulation, identification, and evocation. Considering this, we thought that the anticipated UX survey using the method used in this study was able to capture a wide range of product experiences that could be imagined and predicted from the package design.

4.4. Implications

First, we will discuss the implications from a practical perspective. The evaluation grid method adopted in this study could be used in design development practice when examining the anticipated UX. In particular, although the importance of the anticipated UX is often mentioned in UX design work, it is difficult to say that specific methods have been generalized. In this context, the approach of this study could be a reference case when examining the anticipated UX. In particular, when targeting packaging, it was suggested through the cases targeted in this study that a wide range of interpretable anticipated UXs could be obtained.

As mentioned above, in this study, we created evaluation structure diagrams of the expectations that can be obtained from the packaging of two types of products: flour confections (products with hedonic attributes) and sunscreen (products with practical attributes) using the evaluation grid method. By referring to these evaluation structure diagrams, it is possible to understand the relationship between the physical attributes (specific guidelines for packaging design) of the subordinate concepts and the expectations and predictions they create, so these findings will be useful as a reference for the packaging design of related products. In particular, it was suggested that confectionary packaging should convey a sense of luxury and familiarity and evoke the experience of eating the product. Sunscreen packaging should evoke a sense of the sunscreen’s practical quality and luxury. These findings could be used as a design principle when designing packaging for each product group.

From a theoretical perspective, this research will contribute to investigating UX evaluation mechanisms for anticipated UX, for which evaluation and assessment methods have yet to be established. Clarifying guidelines for considering anticipated UX in design is meaningful, such as what kind of anticipated UX will lead to a better overall user experience. The investigation of the anticipated UX using the evaluation grid method described in this research will enable us to obtain hypotheses about the relationship between package design and anticipated UX from a qualitative approach. By examining the relationship between anticipated UX and product design based on these hypotheses, we can deepen our understanding of the UX evaluation mechanisms of users related to the anticipated UX.

4.5. Limitations

Finally, we will discuss the limitations of this study. Although this study suggests the feasibility of the anticipated UX survey using the evaluation grid method, there are many limitations to understanding the general findings about the packaging design of boxed flour confections and sunscreen, which were the subjects of evaluation in this study. For example, this study surveyed one type of product for each hedonic attribute (candy) and utilitarian attribute (sunscreen). In addition, the products selected for each product category were limited to 20 products that are sold in Japan and are easy to obtain. When considering generalizing the findings for each product group, it will be necessary to carefully examine the components of the packaging design and select products that can be evaluated without omission. Moreover, it will be necessary to conduct surveys on a more diverse range of products. In addition, the number of participants in each product category was 10 Japanese young people, and the attributes were not fully controlled. In order to check whether there are any other concepts when creating a structural diagram, it is necessary to expand the survey to include more participants with different attributes. In particular, in the case of sunscreen, it is expected that the usage context and values will differ depending on age, gender, and daily living circumstances, and it will be necessary to take these points into consideration. In addition, although the survey participants in this case were only Japanese people, and the products were Japanese, there is room for consideration of differences between different cultures.

In order to discuss the validity of the evaluation structure diagram obtained in this study, it would be good to have more support from other research results. In this study, we applied the evaluation grid method, which has rarely been used in previous studies on impressions of packages, so it was not easy to fully compare the results to the current state of prior research and show support for it. In the future, the validity of this method will be discussed in depth by verifying the findings obtained in this study through an experimental approach.

5. Conclusions

The aim of this study was to examine a method for investigating the anticipated UX that users gain from packaging design in an exploratory and qualitative manner. We conducted a survey of flour confections (a product group with strong hedonic attributes) and sunscreen (a product group with strong practical attributes). In the survey, we adopted the evaluation grid method, selected 20 types of each product group, and attempted to structure the design elements of the package and the attractiveness and expectations that can be gained from them. As a result, the following points were identified as important elements of the anticipated UX when holding the packaging of each product group in one’s hand. The following findings were obtained regarding anticipated UX, and it was shown that the anticipated UX obtained from the package can be examined using the evaluation grid method.

(1)

In the case of flour confection packaging, ‘I want to buy it’, ‘I want to give it to someone’, and ‘it looks delicious’ were seen as the top concepts, and ‘it has a luxurious feel’, ‘I can imagine the taste’, and ‘it makes me excited’ were seen as factors;

(2)

In the case of sunscreen packaging, the top-level concepts were practical aspects such as ‘I can expect it to be effective as a sunscreen’ and ‘it’s easy to carry around’, and factors such as ‘it looks like a sunscreen’, ‘I want to use it every day’, and ‘I can use it in public’ were seen. The sunscreens with stronger practical attributes had more functional and usage-related items;

(3)

For example, for a package of flour confections, we can imagine what the taste will be like, and for a sunscreen, we can imagine the performance and effectiveness of the sunscreen. In terms of packaging design, it was reconfirmed that it is important to consider not only the aesthetic appeal of the design but also the anticipated UX, i.e., what kind of experience the user can expect to have.

The anticipated UX can likely be examined using the evaluation grid method not only for the packaging design targeted in this study but also for other products. In design practice, the evaluation grid method can be considered as one option for examining the anticipated UX.

For future research, experiments can be conducted to verify the validity of the specific findings on the anticipated UX obtained in this study, using them as hypotheses. It is also necessary to examine their practical usefulness by applying them to design practice.