Abstract
In 2007, the author began a study to systematically analyze the physical attributes of “kawaii,” focusing on its value as a kansei value of artificial products. In this article, I introduce some of the studies we have conducted. The targeted physical attributes are shape, color, size, and material perception. The obtained results can provide guidelines on how to make industrial products and websites more kawaii. Kansei or emotion has been recognized as very important for our decision making and social acceptance. Kawaii is expected to the fulfillment of peace and sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the twenty-first century.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry: Kansei Value Creation Initiative (2007)
Cheok, A.D., Ohkura, M., Fernando, N.O., Merritt, T.: Designing cute interactive media. Innovation 8(3), 8–9 (2008)
Watanabe, J., Kano, A., Shimizu, Y., Sakamoto, M.: Relationship between judgments of comfort and phonemes of onomatopoeias in touch. Trans. Virtual Reality Soc. Jpn 16(3), 367–370 (2011). (in Japanese)
Ohkura, M. (ed.): Kawaii Engineering: Measurements, Evaluations, and Applications of Attractiveness. Springer, Singapore (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7964-2
Ohkura, M: “Kawaii” Engineering, Asakura Shoten, Tokyo (2017) (in Japanese)
Fuchu City Art Museum: Kawaii Edo Paintings, Kyuryudo, Tokyo (2013) (in Japanese)
Olympic mascots. https://olympics.com/ja/olympic-games/olympic-mascots/. Accessed 06 Feb 2023
Nittono, H.: The Power of “Kawaii”: Exploring its Psychology through Experiments, Kagaku-Dojin, Kyoto (2019) (in Japanese)
Sebastian Masuda. https://sebastianmasuda.com/. Accessed 06 Feb 2023
Acknowledgment
This research was partly supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (No.17500150), (C) (No. 21500204), and (B) (No. 2628104), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. It is also supported by the SIT Research Promotion Funds. We thank Prof. M. Sakamoto of The University of Electro-Communications for supplying tactile materials with related onomatopoeia for Sect. 3.2. We also thank the students of Shibaura Institute of Technology who contributed to the research and served as volunteers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ohkura, M. (2023). “Kawaii” from an Engineering Perspective. In: Rauterberg, M. (eds) Culture and Computing. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14035. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34732-0_43
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34732-0_43
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-34731-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-34732-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)