The interaction of clothing design factors: how to attract consumers' visual attention and enhance emotional experience

Purpose This paper aims to study consumers’ visual attention and emotional experience with clothing design factors and their combinations from the perspective of cognition and emotion and propose an interaction phenomenon to evaluate the combined effect of clothing factors to better guide online clothing design and sales. Design/methodology/approach An eye movement physiology experiment was conducted, 33 participants screened by questionnaires were invited for this experiment. Hypotheses of visual attention were verified by the FIRST_FIXATION_TIME indicator, DWELL_TIME indicator and FIXATION_COUNT indicator. Hypotheses of emotional experience were verified by the PUPIL_SIZE indicator. Findings First, on the product list page, it is better to use only the three factors of clothing and a small number of stimulating factors. Second, when the stimulus is consistent with the cognitive task performed by the consumer, the efficiency of the task and the consumer's user experience will be improved. Third, the positive interaction phenomenon of clothing design factors and their combinations could significantly attract consumers' visual attention and improve their emotional experience. Research limitations/implications This work argues consumer interest and emotional experience with online clothing can be expressed through eye movement physiological indicators, and the concept of interaction was proposed to evaluate the design and display of online clothing. Originality/value This paper conducted interaction research on online clothing design factors and their combinations from the perspective of cognition and emotion, which provided an objective quantitative method for online clothing designers and online clothing retailers.