Trends in Electronic Cigarette Design in the United States

01 - Identification and Descriptive

(1) Discrimination and Descriptive: When a person sees an item, they quickly associate it with the knowledge in their memory and make a description of it, for example (in Figure 1, b) it seems like a smart kid (a), or I think of XXX from the past. People have the ability to make active associations, then consciously categorize it, and summarize it through something like this to make an induction about this product and convey information externally. Therefore, this "something like this" can help people remember, and describe the memory in words, promoting communication and interaction among people. Inspiration: The new series can adopt this idea, use "something like this" to differentiate from other brands, use "something like this" to lead the trend, and give people a certain psychological feeling.

(2) Possession of uniqueness: This is like what? Once a brand adopts it, it will be considered as unique. If other brands use it, it will be regarded as copying and plagiarism. A symbol feature that is initially used will be considered as unique. Take the Raz brand as an example. The diagonal division like this, if other brands adopt this design, it will be mistakenly regarded as very similar to Raz, losing its brand personality and characteristics. Inspiration: Either continue the shape of the best-selling product, or establish a completely new shape.
(3) Source determines style: The source implies the product style. For example, if it originates from a wine bottle, it will seem very casual and homey. If it originates from the edges of a car, it will seem very fast and tough. If it originates from the waves of nature, it will seem very natural. If it originates from a diesel bottle (Figure 2d), it will definitely seem very mechanical and tough (Figure 2a). The elements of the source are conducive to expressing the style. The source is the root of what it resembles. The source also corresponds to user segmentation and aesthetic preferences.     

(4) Adjectives and Differentiation: Describing the shape and operation features of the product as well as symbols, for instance, the one with a waistline in the middle (Figure 3) evokes the Viho brand, the one that is thick at both ends and narrow in the middle, or the one that is very wide in the middle, with several modules that can be combined, the cigarette holder that can rotate, or very flat, S-shaped aluminum sheet (Figure 4, e), semi-circular aluminum sheet (Figure 4, f). Adjectives are differentiation. Adjectives define the direction. Design is merely the visual expression of adjectives. The most significant meaning here is to accumulate brand assets.

Consumer psychology and appearance design
Based on the analysis of these well-known products, we conducted offline visits to some local consumers in the United States, attempting to infer the relationship between design and consumer psychology through their conversations and draw some conclusions that are beneficial for design guidance. A: The psychology of seeking novelty: Consumers' understanding of products involves three major steps: 1. Attraction, 2. Detailed observation, 3. Use and operation. 1. "Attraction" is to stimulate the perceptual system of people. For example, a radiating effect. In terms of appearance design, this belongs to an emotional impulse, such as falling in love at first sight. It attracts attention by focusing on a point and continuously enlarging it. The key to this design is to find this point, which is the differentiating point and the attraction point. This guides us to develop radiating material processes. 2. "Detailed observation" means carefully observing the local details, seeing the places where they are thoughtful, all of which belong to detailed observation, and observing calmly. 3. "Use and operation", which is the operational feature. For example, suction or watching its animation. This animation will not appear initially. Only when you are interested in this product and then perform the use operation, can you see some rich effects in the animation. B: The psychology of acceptance: On the other hand, for users who have long-term experience with electronic cigarettes, they will directly purchase products in offline stores. At this time, as long as the material process is not very cheap and can match this price range, this guides us to develop low-cost processes. Moreover, their style is not exclusive. At this time, the taste and experience memory of the e-liquid are ranked first.