Survey Results Analysis - Lanterns

Using surveymonkey.com we conducted a survey in order to ask people what they thought about lanterns both aesthetically and functionally. The survey consisted of five questions and a total of 22 participants took part in the survey. In order to address what people considered a lantern to be and what people considered pleasing to the eye we gathered a series of pictures of different types of lanterns from the web. We narrowed this selection down to five distinct lantern types (shown in fig.1) and asked the participants to choose which lantern they considered to be a traditional lantern and which they found most pleasing.

Fig.1

Fig.2

The results are shown in fig.2

Fig.2

Over 60% of people consider the first image to be a traditional style lantern.

The next few questions concentrated on the design and functional features of the lantern, asking them why they considered image one to be a traditional lantern. A range of responses were collected and analysed in order to determine what features should be included in the lantern so that people will recognise it. The most dominant answers included:

• Handle (64%)
• Light Source (55%)
• Glass Chamber (36%)
• Candle (27%)
• Shape (22%)

Other answers which we will take into consideration when designing the lantern are the fact that lanterns are portable (18%). Our concept consist of stationary lanterns which are switched on and off by the user but not moved. The survey clearly shows that people consider a handle to be a key feature in the design of a lantern and doesn't this imply that you can pick up the object and move it? Will the fact that one cannot move the lantern have an effect on how the user interacts with it or responds to it. Further experiments into this should be made using physical lanterns as testing subjects. It should also be considered that although the lantern is the starting point of the installation it is only used to trigger content and so other elements play a part in the users interaction with the piece. This should be reflected in further experiments.

Other answers included varying brightness (14%) with some kind of dial or twist function (14%).

The final question considered the aesthetic value of the lanterns and how people responded to it. The participants were asked to choose the lantern most pleasing to the eye (based on Fig.1). The results are shown in Fig.3.

Fig. 3

Here the majority considered the third lantern to be the most pleasing. This raises more questions towards the design of the lanterns. Should they be pretty and inviting, should they look like a common lantern, how historically accurate should they be? Research into similarly designed projects should be conducted in order to determine the importance of aesthetics vs. accuracy in heritage projects.