It's a question of talent! The interplay of design complexity and talent information on consumers' product design responses

Purpose Existing research on product design has found that a design's complexity is an important antecedent of consumers' aesthetic and behavioural responses. This paper aims to shed new light on the relationship between design complexity and perceptions of design quality by taking the effects of consumers' naive theories into account. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses of this paper are tested in a series of three experiments. Findings The findings from three studies show that the extent to which consumers prefer more complex product designs to simpler ones depends on the extent to which they believe that the complexity of a design is indicative of the effort or of the talent of the designers involved in the design process. These competing naive theories, in turn, are triggered by contextual information that consumers have at their disposal, such as the professional background of a designer or the brand that is associated with a particular design. Research limitations/implications This research was limited to a design's complexity as the central design element and to the effects of two naive theories. Future research may also take other design factors and consumer heuristics into account. Practical implications This research reveals that the extent to which managers may successfully introduce both complex and simple designs may depend on the reputation of a company's designers and the prestige of a brand. Originality/value This research examines design complexity from a novel theoretical perspective and shows that the effect of design complexity on perceptions of design quality is contingent on two specific naive theories of consumers.