Products search through the use of semantic properties - report from the experiment at Kunstindustrimuseet

In April 2004 an experiment was carried out at The Technical University of Denmark and at the Danish Arts and Craft Museum. The purpose was to explore how precise verbal communication could capture the semantic content of physical products. The experiment explored the possibilities of verbal communication with regard to the semantic messages that products contain in the form of non-verbal expressions (i.e., through their shape and colour). 12 participants in groups of 2 selected exhibited products and described them verbally. Based on the verbal description, other teams were then asked to identify the products in question. A little less than half of the products were identified. The experiment indicates that it is possible to capture the essence of products' semantic content in a few words. The experiment also illustrated a number of problems in using this type of explorative research. Based on these findings, new and improved experiments are being planned.