University of SaskatchewanHARVEST
  • Login
  • Submit Your Work
  • About
    • About HARVEST
    • Guidelines
    • Browse
      • All of HARVEST
      • Communities & Collections
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
      • This Collection
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
    • My Account
      • Login
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
      View Item 
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item

      Visual balance in engineering design for aesthetic value

      Thumbnail
      View/Open
      MohammadAli_Mokarian_MSc_Thesis.pdf (1.952Mb)
      Date
      2007
      Author
      Mokarian, Mohammad Ali
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
      Show full item record
      Abstract
      The aesthetic aspect of a functional product is growing to be an important reason for the consumer’s choice to buy the product. Despite this importance, aesthetics has not generally been incorporated into engineering design which makes much sense of functional and ergonomic designs. The study presented in this thesis aims to remedy this observed gap. The study focuses on the integration of aesthetic attributes with functional attributes of a product and on the quantification of the aesthetic principle from fine arts into design variables of the product. In particular, two hypotheses underlie this study: (1) design variables can be classified in terms of their relevance to functional, ergonomic, and aesthetic attributes, and (2) a particular aesthetic principle, namely visual balance, helps to achieve an improved aesthetic product.The cell phone is used to ground this study. A statistic experiment using the cell phone product positively tests the first hypothesis, resulting in two design variable which are only related to the aesthetic attribute of the cell phone product. The study of the visual balance principle results in a more general formula which relates design variables to visual balance with consideration of both geometry and color of the cell phone product. Finally, another statistic experiment is designed, which positively tests the second hypothesis.This study concludes: (1) the effective integration of aesthetics with function and ergonomics requires an analysis and classification of design variables, and (2) there is a potential to quantify all aesthetic principles from fine arts into design variables.
      Degree
      Master of Science (M.Sc.)
      Department
      Mechanical Engineering
      Program
      Mechanical Engineering
      Supervisor
      Zhang, W. J. (Chris)
      Committee
      Gupta, Madan M.; Chen, X. B. (Daniel)
      Copyright Date
      2007
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-05112007-140335
      Subject
      balance measurement
      engineering design
      aesthetics
      beauty
      quantify
      cell phone
      ergonomics
      neural network
      weight of color
      function
      axiomatic design theory
      independence axiom
      product
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      University of Saskatchewan

      University Library

      © University of Saskatchewan
      Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy