Preface
Today offline experience becomes very important and the styling of the shop window is also crucial to this experience. Of course, the interior design and display comesthe first, and the change of lighting, especially the intelligence of the lighting of shop window, should be paid attention to. Do you know anything about this? Today, I would like to elaborate the impact of dynamic lighting on customer preferences. Although it is a sample of foreign customer, I believe that at least the experimental spirit and experimental methods can be used as our reference.
Impact of the design parameters of dynamic lighting on shopvisitors’ perception and preference
The two shops change their lighting parameters for windows, involving color temperature, color, and brightness, and use eye tracking and questionnaire to obtain the participants “understanding” of the dynamic lighting of the window. This is the attention paid to the relationship between dynamic lighting parameters and passerby’s purchasing behavior.
ⅠDesign of shop window: is it worth going in to have a look?
First impression!
The shop window plays an important role in attracting the attention of passersby. You only have 2.5 seconds to attract the attention of passersby. So you should make sure that the first time the passerby sees the window, his or her interest should be aroused. The brand image is being impacted by the aesthetic design and the attraction, which would impulse the shopping. Lighting is an important means to change emotions and atmosphere. The lighting design that integrates with the shop window can be a great seduction for passerby to get into the store.
Create a scene is like doing magic.
The shopping experience of physical stores is becomingmore and more important. It allows customers to experience goods to the fullest. Lighting can guide, stimulate, seduce and attract customers. Under the circumstance that the interior design tends to be calm and neutral, the lighting design needs to create new expressions so as to have emotional influence and create atmosphere. With lighting to influence the atmosphere, architecturalstructure and environment flexibly and quickly, a whole new space is born.
Interaction will be the theme of shop design.
Fashion always changes rapidly, so do customer expectations.Now the transformation of store environment and the display flexibility are demanded, and the shop lighting cannot be static.Lighting control can create ever-changing, dynamic scenes with more possibilities. With the intelligent lighting system, we can apply different lighting schemes at different times, and implement different lighting schemes that arebalanced-soft, guidingor high contrast based on the preferences of specific targets.
How about the relationship between personal buying behavior and lighting?
How much does the lighting scheme affect the attraction? What results will make customers feel unpleasant?
How much does the lighting effect the customer's interest? Is the customer attracted by the goods oris his or her attention diverted?
How to use dynamic lighting to arouse customer’s attention? Balanced soft or high contrast lighting?
Can fast-changing dynamic lighting help improve attraction and recognition? How often does dynamic lighting change?
II Test &experiment
In order to answer these questions, we conducted a study: based on different brightness, colors, color temperatures, projection directions, and different customer groups, to attract passerby and extend the time for passerby to stay in front of the window.
We set up a visual projection of the same size as the shop window at Vorarlberg University (Austria), to really show the design of the window. This studies and tests two window concepts: large-area lighting of flood light, and spotlighting of high precision.
Test site and device: Tobii X60 binocular eye tracker, eye tracking software Tobii Studio™.
Each participant watches 10 short video clips where different window lighting scenesare displayed. The participants’eye movements are recorded, and then they are questioned what lighting results are recognized by themselves.
Make videos using VIVALDI software for calculation stimulation.
The track spotlights on the ceiling and wall illuminate the manikin to create a key for lighting;the flood light on the right exterior wall helps realize theindirect lighting; the upper left floor and ceiling lamps create the floodlighting of background wall;the lamp on the floor create a contrast effect; the shelves are equipped with small spotlights to create shelf lighting.
The number of participants totaled 54 people, including 41 men(76%) and 13 women (24%).
III Test results
The test results of female participants are used in this article.
Test 1: Unchanged static lighting scene.
Supposed: In this case, only the window display design can attract the participants.
Evaluation: The static video is intended to compare with other dynamic lighting scenes. Women pay attention to the goods in the window, while men scan the whole window space.
Test 2: Quickly change the intensity of the background color light in an unbounded area.
Supposed: The light that flashes fast and rhythmically can be attractive.
Evaluation: The light that flashes quickly is difficult to notice.Half of the participants notethe changes in light color and color intensity.
Test 3: Quickly change the intensity of the background color light in a bounded area.
Supposed: Attractive activities can attract people's attention. Strong and rapid changes can be unpleasant.
Evaluation: The lighting effect can be felt by the participants. Women are easy to find the lighting effect of rapid flashes, and men are looking for flashes in the right area.
Test 4: Change the light color of the background light in an unbounded area.
Supposed: A slow change in light color can attract the participants and extend their stay in front of the window. Too strong change of light color would cause unpleasant feeling.
Evaluation: The participants areaware of the effect as a whole.Almost half of the participants are aware of the change in light color. During this, men are more sensitive about such changes.
Test 5: Change the intensity and color of the background light in an unbounded area.
Supposed: Slowly changing light color, along with soft brightnessdecrease, may easily arouse attention.
Evaluation: 40% of the participants find the change of light color, and 25% the change of brightness. So the change of brightness is not as effective as the change of light color.
Test 6: Spotlighting appears randomly in a box.
Supposed: Strong spotlighting can attract attention, and can extend the eye focus ongoods that is spotlighted.
Evaluation: Women are more sensitive towards such spotlighting.
Test 7: The overalllighting of one window is increased, while that of the other is decreased.
Supposed: The dimming and lightening happen at the same time, and people usually feel the darker side more easily and find it more attractive on the bright side.
Evaluation: Half of the participants find the changes on the bright side.Only the 6thparticipant is aware of the change on the dark side.
Test 8: The spotlighting of one window is increased, whilethat of the other is decreased.
Supposed: If the dimming and lightening happen at the same time, people in general pay attention to the continuously brighter side.
Evaluation: Less than a half of the participants find the changes of lighting. Compared to the changes in overall lighting, the change of spotlighting is not so easy to be felt.
Test 9: Change the intensity of lighting in the box of the right-side window.
Supposed: If the upper row is lightenedand the lower row is dimmed at the same time, people usually pay attention to those dimmed.
Evaluation: Men are more likely to find changes in the lighting effects. Women say it's hard to find these changes.
Test 10: The spotlighting is shifted from the left to the right.
Supposed: The eyes move with the changes in the brightness of spotlighting, from the left to the right.
Evaluation: It is difficult to feel the gradually enhanced spotlighting. The slight increase in brightness cannot arouse attention.
IV Summary
The flashlights can immediately attract attention and can be remembered. However, the participants surveyed think that this light effect is a problem with the light and their evaluation of the effect is also relative negative.Therefore, it is not recommended to use such rapidly changing light during the design of windows for goods at medium and high prices.
In one day, different products are displayed and highlighted through different contrast effects, so that passersby can find it fresh every time they pass. The lighting effect that is associated with the psychology of perceptionwill play a much better role than the expected.
The spotlighting is transferred from the left to the right. That is, the goods on the left, the middle and the right are illuminated in turn. In the questionnaire, the participants have a positive evaluation, but eye-tracking results show that these changes are actually very weak.
This study mainly shows the influence of brightness, light distribution and light color on customers’ subjective consciousness and furthermore on their willing to get into the store and their purchasing behaviors.
How much doesa certainlighting design parameter play in attracting passersby into the store instead of driving them away?
The lighting design concepts tested can be used as the basis for theapplication, or the data for subsequence research projects.
Note: This study was based on Carolin Fröhlich's bachelor's theory for interior design at the University of Coburg, Germany.
The article is extracted from 2016-2017 China Commercial Lighting Blue Paper.