Integrating the UMA and CM Models to Explain Aesthetic Judgement in Closed-Category Product Design: A Laptop Product Study

Visual aesthetics play a critical role in influencing consumer preferences, particularly in structurally constrained product categories. While the Unified Model of Aesthetics (UMA) and Whitfield’s Categorical-Motivation (CM) model have been widely used to explain aesthetic evaluations, their integration in closed-category product design remains underexplored. This study investigates how perceptual (unity, variety), cognitive (typicality, novelty), and social (connectedness, autonomy) variables affect aesthetic preferences for laptops—a representative closed-category product. Ten laptop images, including commercial and conceptually designed models, were evaluated by 234 Chinese non-design participants using a seven-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA, generalized estimating equations (GEE), estimated marginal means (EMMs), and linear mixed-effects modeling (LMM). The findings indicate that safety-oriented features, such as connectedness, typicality, and unity, are the strongest predictors of aesthetic liking. Among the three UMA levels, social variables exerted the greatest influence. Stimulus-level scatter plots further validated asymmetrical weighting among opposing forces (e.g., unity > variety, typicality > novelty, connectedness > autonomy,). The integration of CM and UMA provides a refined framework for evaluating aesthetic judgment in closed-category design. Designers should prioritize coherence, familiarity, and social alignment to enhance aesthetic appeal in products with structural constraints.