The Relationship between User Personality Traits and Perceived Product Characteristics

Background Due to current market globalization, a single electronic product such as the iPhone is used by many users worldwide. However, the ways that consumers perceive products cannot be necessarily the same because consumers belong to their own inherent culture and individual characteristics. Recently, the electronics industry has realized the importance of local and personal influences of product perception. Nonetheless, there have been very few studies on how individual characteristics may influence perceived product characteristics. Personality has been recognized as a representative variable of individual characteristics. Therefore, this exploratory study investigates how user personality can make a difference in the perception of product characteristics.Methods The iPhone was selected among various popular electronic products as a target product. A questionnaire survey and interview were conducted to discover the correlation between user personality traits and perceived product characteristics. Twenty Dutch iPhone users participated in the study.Results The overall results indicate that there is a relationship between user personality traits and perceived product characteristics. Each personality trait showed a significant correlation with the perception of particular product characteristics. However, function did not show a significant correlation.Conclusion The personality traits of the user influenced the perception of product characteristics. Therefore, it is imperative to figure out how the personality of the user correlates with particular product characteristics while increasing user satisfaction. These findings can provide designers a better understanding of how product characteristics are differently perceived, depending on particular user personality traits, and help designers map the design direction of their target user group.