Typicality and Novelty

What it is

Typicality is how well a product resembles others of its kind. Novelty is how much it departs from them. The authors begin from a puzzle: both are linked to liking for human-made objects, but a typical product is rarely novel, so their positive effects seem to conflict.

Their answer was statistical as well as conceptual. Looking at either quality alone, the direct correlation with preference was not significant. Once the other quality was controlled, each correlation became significant. The two qualities suppressed one another, and only taken together did they predict preference well.

In effect

Across the three studies, typicality and novelty were about equally effective as predictors. The expertise of the observers did not change how much novelty contributed to preference, and a measure of typicality based on central tendency produced the same pattern as the first measure. The summary the authors draw is that people prefer novel designs provided the novelty does not cost the design its typicality.

For a brand, one reading of this is that taking a category's common colour secures typicality at once, and any novelty has to be found in other parts of the identity such as shade, shape, layout or motion. That is an interpretation of the study for branding, which the study itself did not test.

What it does not say

The studies concerned industrial design of consumer products, not colour, logos or brand identity. They do not say which features of a design should carry the novelty, and they do not measure sales.

---