Article Review: Using virtual reality and mood-induction procedures to test products with consumers of ceramic tiles
Berenice Serrano, Cristina Botella, Rosa M. Baños and, Mariano Alcañiz
Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 648–653

Virtual Reality (VR)is the technology that creates a synthetic reality using 3D graphics thereby generating interactive environments. According to the authors of this article, industries have been slowly integrating this technology into their product-value chain, but mainly to provide more information about their products.This particular group of investigators from Spain has used innovative VR technology to study its capability to induce relaxation and sense of presence. How is it related to tile? The group targeted ceramic tile consumers for their study.

The Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) created by the groupwas a 2-story home in which the users were given the option to choose different ceramic tile products for floor and walls. Users could also add or move furniture, listen to music or watch TV, regulate the intensity of light…etc. In addition the VRE used other mood inducers such as pictures, a video of a beach scene, anda narrative to induce relaxation. The size of the sample was 26 participants (18 women and 8 men) between the ages of 18 – 63 years and each was paid €12 for an interactive session of 1 hour. Different types of scales and measures were utilized to measure their changes in mood. The moods in consideration were: relaxation, anxiety, sadness, joy, and arousal, which determined the “affective valence” and sense of presence. The measures were taken before and after VRE interaction.

An increase in points related to relaxation and joy, and a decrease related to arousal, anxiety and sadness. Sense of presence was calculated to be 5.61 on a nine-point scale and 84% of participants indicated that they would use their customized preferences in their homes.The participants also had an option of choosing a natural element such as grass or sand for flooring, but no observations of participants choosing this option over ceramic tile were reported in the study. A parallel study on whethera VRE would be more or less helpful in encouraging the customer to choose ceramic tile, without the additional mood inducers, would have yielded another useful observation.

In the discussion, the authors argue that “…the objective is not for the products to induce an emotion, but to create an experience that induces emotions”. Though in this study ceramic tile products were used to induce the emotions, the entire VRE interaction is rather a “generic” setting in which the ceramic tile can be replaced with any other product.Essentially, what the authors indicate is that the VRE helps by providing a “tool” to the participants enabling them to visualize how the products would look in a real home. It is slightly disappointing that ceramic tile is not the star of the show, but just an example. However I believe that the authors’ argument, that VRE can be useful in evaluating customer’s preferences over different products, holds merit.

If interested in more information about this research, please contact Dr. Jyothi Rangineni at Tile Council of North America.