All That Glitters Is Gold: Development and Validation of the Product Aesthetics Inventory (PAI)

Aesthetics is essential to the design of products. Nevertheless, aesthetic quality is often assessed with inaccurate, ad hoc scales. Therefore, we have developed the Product Aesthetics Inventory (PAI) and its short version, the PAI-S. A Pre-Study using face-to-face interviews (N = 6 design experts, N = 4 product users) served as basis for the development of test items. The resulting item battery was then used by N = 6,002 persons in an online survey to evaluate various types of household appliances. In Study 1, n = 3,000 of those participants' data were used to determine the number of product aesthetics factors and to select the optimal items by combining exploratory graph analysis (EGA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approaches. We found an eight-factor structure consisting of the dimensions Visual Aesthetics, Operating Elements, Logo, Feedback Sounds, Operating Sounds, Haptic, Interaction Aesthetics, and Impression. In Study 2, we confirmed this structure by a CFA with the remaining n = 3,002 participants, resulting in excellent model fit. Further, construct validity was confirmed by correlations with other established aesthetic scales, intentions, and general judgments. In both studies, strict measurement invariance was achieved across four household appliances, which further highlights the psychometric quality of the newly developed scales. In Study 3 (N = 1,028), we demonstrated that most of the PAI factors as well as reliability, validity, and measurement invariance findings generalized to power tools, office equipment, and home entertainment devices. Finally, we provide recommendations for the usage of the PAI and implications for further research.