The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of different levels of pack-aging transparency on the evaluation of attractiveness of a product within the packaging, in relation to whether it is a healthy or unhealthy product. Consumer preferences during buying decision process were also investi-gated. The study was conducted by two methods. The first one was related to consumer preferences and was based on a choice task, while the other one was related to packaging attractiveness and was based on subjective evaluation expressed through the Likert scale. Eight samples of packaging were used. They differed according to product type (healthy and unhealthy), and the level of transparency (fully transparent packaging, packaging with two windows, packaging with one window and non-transparent packaging). According to the results, consumers tend to ignore non-transparent packaging, regardless the product healthiness. The findings indicate the importance of thoughtful selection of packaging structure and its material in design process and launching the food products on the retail market.

Many recent researches focused on packaging elements as two separate groups: visual and informative elements. This study goes deeper into the group of visual elements on food packaging (i.e. strawberry chocolate packaging) in order to investigate their ability to attract attention. The elements tested in the study were: typeface, graphics, pattern and colour. The study included 90 people who participated by filling out an online questionnaire. The participants’ task was to choose, among packaging designs with the manipulated visual elements, the one they preferred. According to the results, typeface did not affect participants’ preferences. On the contrary, graphics, patterns and colours had a significant impact on the choices. Participants preferred photography over illustration, concrete pattern over abstract and vivid colours over dull. These results can be used as guidelines in marketing and design.

Packaging appearance is important in evoking consumer impressions. No study has yet explored how two prominent packaging attributes, shape and material, affect the consumers’ impressions and their expectations in the case of coffee products. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate whether the packaging shape has an impact on the taste intensity expected by the consumer, and whether packaging materials influence the expected coffee quality. In an online experiment, 115 participants evaluated different packaging samples. They rated the expected taste intensity for packaging samples that varied in shape complexity (i.e., cylindrical, rounded-angular, hexagonal and multifaceted). They also rated the expected coffee quality for packaging samples that varied in material (i.e., plastic, aluminium, glass and metal). The results showed that the packaging with a higher degree of shape complexity was associated with a higher taste intensity. Furthermore, we found a negative effect of glass on the expectation of product quality. The findings could be applied in product packaging design which aims to match the expected and actual characteristics of the product.

Instruction manuals provide important messages about the proper use of a product. They should communicate in such a way that they facilitate users’ searches for specific information. Despite the increasing research interest in visual search, there is a lack of empirical knowledge concerning the role of pictograms in search performance during the browsing of a manual’s pages. This study investigates how the inclusion of pictograms improves the search for the target information. Furthermore, it examines whether this search process is influenced by the visual similarity between the pictograms and the searched for information. On the basis of eye-tracking measurements, as objective indicators of the participants’ visual attention, it was found that pictograms can be a useful element of search strategy. Another interesting finding was that boldface highlighting is a more effective method for improving user experience in information seeking, rather than the similarity between the pictorial and adjacent textual information. Implications for designing effective user manuals are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Users often view instruction manuals with the aim of finding specific information. We used eye-tracking technology to examine different manual pages in order to improve the user’s visual search for target information. The results indicate that the use of pictograms and bold highlighting of relevant information facilitate the search process.

The spread of invasive alien plant species (IAPS) is a leading reason for worldwide environmental change due to their effects on biodiversity and humans. Some valued goods from IAPS have been produced, e.g. paper that consists of cellulose fibres from Japanese knotweed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the usability of this paper grade as a printing substrate, since it does not have ideal optical properties as it is expected from commercial office paper. Because it is widely used, inkjet printing technology was employed. Print permanence is essential, especially when printing documents. However, typographic characteristics must be considered to make a text more legible. Two widely used typefaces (Arial and Times) were tested in three commonly used type sizes (8 pt, 10 pt, and 12 pt). The results showed that the paper made from Japanese knotweed could have valuable properties and suitable legibility, especially when using typefaces with a moderate counter size, high x-height, and minimal differences in the letter stroke width to obtain an appropriate typographic tonal density with an adequate type size. Even after exposure to light, the texts printed in a proper type size and stroke width remained visible.