4.1 Comprehension Modes of the Consumers in the Focus Group on the Communication Design of Food Package
Table 3 Comprehension Modes of the Focus Group on the Visual Communication Design of the Food Package
Comprehension Mode Representative Commodity Comprehension Mode Representative Commodity No.1 17%
Brand Name + Product Image N0.8 7%
Package Shape + Actual Product Appearance
No.2 14%
Product Name + Actual Product Appearance
N0.9 6%
Actual Product Appearance
N0.3 12%
Brand Name + Actual Product Appearance
No.10 3%
Package Shape + Color Association
Package Shape + Product Image
Package Shape + Brand Name
z Comprehension mode of a+b indicates that comprehension for the commodity is achieved through a visual message transmitted by a and b design elements.
Consumer Comprehension of the Communication Designs for Food Packaging The results of this research were obtained according to the major opinions of the focus group on the package sample. The first interview was performed to analyze the comprehensibility of 90 samples and to identify 13 selective modes based on the comprehension modes of the consumers in the focus group (Table 3).
The comprehension modes of the focus group on the communication design of food package were further analyzed in this study. The analysis showed that when discussing the package of Lipton milk tea, most of the consumers comprehended the product according to the preference sequence Lipton Brand, name of the milk tea, and the actual picture of the drink. Therefore, the first choice of the coding entry of the communication design to enhance comprehensibility is Brand Name, second is Product Name, and third is Product Image (see Sec. 4.2). The data analysts determined the design elements related to the comprehensibility communication design according to the analysis of property and orientation.
It is found that most of the consumers comprehended the commodity content through a combination of more than two design elements during their experience of comprehend-ing the food package after analyzcomprehend-ing Table 3. In the comprehension modes, commodity information transmitted through the combination of design elements of brand name plus product image was best comprehended. Additionally, the top six comprehension modes include either the brand name or commodity name as the first factor to be understood, which adopts the text as the comprehension mode, accounting for 72%. It should be added that the initial reaction of the focus group is to comprehend the product through its package name instead of any other product information, which is similar to ordinary consumers’ behavior when they browse a food package. The major feature of the package design will be comprehended by the focus group when they search for the target merchandise visually among a set of goods. Therefore, when comprehending the word design element of the food package, the focus group prefers to know what is in the package through its brand name or merchandise name. Moreover, if the food package has an inherent shape, it would tend to facilitate comprehension, accounting for 22%. The rest, 6%, accounts for comprehension that involved the package design less.
4.2 Perception of the Consumer Focus Group on the Comprehensibility Communication Design of Food Package
Sequential comparison was incorporated into the investigation on estimation mode, brand image, visual effect, and commodity features in the research field of package design. [16, 17, 18] The results relayed in Table 2 in this study are concluded in Table 3, from which it can be seen that there are one or three kinds of selective combination modes of communication design facilitating comprehension and that there exists a sequential relationship among the modes. However, some specific situations should be examined further; for instance, the consumer is inclined to regard the food packed in a transparent container as the real object rather than this information being plainly stated in the package material. For example, the comprehension mode of NO.3 is brand name plus real object display. However, the transmission of the real object display is not through its design elements. Therefore, when discussing the communication design facilitating comprehension, it is excluded(marked as *). Therefore, comprehension mode, excluding the real object display, can’t be collected as an intensified focus of communication design.
Regarding the design element of a non-food package from the perspective of compression of communication design, consumers are inclined to understand the commodity’s content directly from its transparent package container (such as a transparent plastic bottle, glass bottle, and transparent plastic bags) without understanding the text design element. This is a useful insight for package designers by dealing with the external texture of the package material or creating a different and novel means for visual perception of the package by using light colors or a transparent material container.
Wang, Chou
Additionally, consumers are at ease buying commodities that they can actually see because of the commodity’s transparent package attributes, for example, sweetmeat and blend oil. If the designer does not pay attention to the comprehension of the food package’s content and merely takes the opaque material to advertise the package without considering consumers’ preferences and comprehension manner, failure of the package design might result. In Table 4, the mode most frequently selected on the comprehensibil-ity communication design of the food package is Brand Name plus Product Image. It can be noted that the consumer is inclined to comprehend a famous brand. However, as for the design element text, “Famous Brand” belongs to the category of Brand Name.
Therefore, to avoid confusion, Brand Name is adopted as the standard term.
Table 4 Selective Mode for Promoting Consumers’ Comprehension on the Communication Design of Food Package
Communication design for promoting the comprehension Comprehension focus for design elements Comprehension mode Selection ratio
1st choice 2nd choice 3rd choice
Text No.1 17% Brand Name Product Image
Text No.2* 14% Product Name Actual Product Appearance Text No.3* 12% Brand Name Actual Product Appearance
Text No.4 11% Product Name Product Image
Text No.5 9% Brand Name Product Name Product Image
Text No.6 7% Brand Name
Shape No.7 7% Package Shape Brand Name
Shape No.8* 7% Package Shape Actual Product Appearance Actual Product No.9* 6% Actual Product Appearance
Shape No.10 3% Package Shape Color Association
Shape No.11 3% Package Shape
Shape No.12 2% Package Shape Product Image
Text No.13 2% Product Name Package Shape
* represents the comprehension mode including the non-package element (real object display) z Bold italic Brand Name indicates that the original comprehension mode is Famous Brand
To compare the communication design elements in the comprehension mode, fre-quency weighting of the intensified emphasis of the communication design elements was made [19, 20] as follows. In this research ,the data collected are sorted and recorded according to descriptive statistics, which are then adjusted by weighting (a kind of statistic method ) to highlight the predominant feature of the sample data. This method will make the data more representative, and their analysis will also be enhanced. Thus, the significance of an effective understanding of the design element is determined [19].
The calculation mode of the frequency weighting in Table 5 is given a weighting ratio according to the selected sequence (the first communication design selected is given three points, the second, two points, and the third, one point). Then this is multiplied by the number of times the communication design arises, and the summation is obtained. This is so because in the comprehension mode, the selected frequencies that promote the comprehension of communication frequency with Brand Name appear three times (three points), while the second appear once (two points). Its weighting mark is calculated as 3*(3)+1*(2)=11. As compared to the 3*(2)+1*(1)=7 of product image, the former is easier to be understood. However, as for the calculation of selected frequency, Brand Name (3+1=4) is the same as Product Image (3+1=4); the two communication design elements cannot be distinguished from one another. As a result, judgment error can be prevented only through the weighting method because of the narrow mark scope. Thus, word elements can be distinguished from the weighting method on the aspect of comprehension of the design elements, with the focus group preferring the use of brand name over product name in comprehending food package content.
As described in Table 4 and 5, there are two kinds of design elements that can achieve the comprehension inclination in the mode of consumer focus group on the communication design of food package. The first inclination is to take the communica-tion design element text such Brand Name and Product Name as the first choice in comprehending the product content, while the second inclination is to take the well-known and striking shape such as Package Shape as the design element in order to know the product content.
Consumer Comprehension of the Communication Designs for Food Packaging Table 5 Weaknesses, Strengths, and Taxis for the Design Elements Promoting Consumers’
Comprehension on the Communication Design of Food Package
Calculation on the Emergent Frequency Weighting Intensified focus of the design elements for communication design
1st choice 2nd choice 3rd choice Total
Text（Brand Name） 3*(3)=9 1*(2)=2 11
Text（Product Name） 2*(3)=6 1*(2)=2 8
Shape（Package Shape） 4*(3)=12 1*(2)=2 14
Image（Product Image） 3*(2)=6 1*(1)=1 7
Color（Color Association） 1*(2)=2 2
z Selected sequence for the design elements of communication for promoting comprehension:
TEXT(BRAND NAME>PRODUCT NAME)>SHAPE(PACKAGE SHAPE)>IMAGE(PRODUCT IMAGE)>COLOR(COLOR ASSOCIATION)
From Table 5, there are two unusual results. The consumer’s calculation outcome of the selected frequency weighting for the communication design is Package Shape(Shape)
>Brand Name(Text)>Product Name(Text)> Product Image(Image)>Color Association (Color). Based on the above statement, it can be seen that consumers’ comprehension of a food package is influenced by their experiences and collective memory of the product. As for the familiar property of a commodity, the consumers are inclined to perceive the pattern more than the connotation of words on the food package. Therefore, only when designers take into account consumers’ habit and understand the principles behind their perception of the food package’s pattern design can an effective design be achieved.
However, upon further investigation on how the communication design displayed by the design elements achieves comprehensibility, calculation of the total selected frequency weighting of the communication design of both Brand Name and Product Name is made.
Therefore, the selected sequence of the design elements that promotes the comprehension on the communication design is TEXTS>SHAPE>IMAGE>COLOR.
5 Conclusion and Suggestions