industrial design case study

25 inspiring examples of industrial design

These ingenious examples of industrial design all combine aesthetic appeal with creative problem-solving.

Whether it's a mobile phone, a vacuum cleaner or a chair, the very best examples of industrial design seamlessly blend form and function to make products truly desirable.

As its name implies, this discipline is about all balancing creative, conceptual, freeform thinking with the practical, industrial constraints of actually getting something made, which requires knowledge of production processes, materials and technology.

Over the years, some designers' mastery of this crucial balance has elevated them to iconic status - and we've featured some of the fruits of their labour here. We all know how product design by the likes of Jonathan Ive, James Dyson or Charles Eames look and work. Chances are you already own one, or at least want one.

But we've also included some great industrial designs that you may not already have seen - some of which are on the market, while some are still at a concept stage. So whether you're a consumer hungry for the latest stylish gadget to kit out your apartment, or a designer yourself looking for inspiration, read on...

01. Mini Cooper

The Mini is a design classic that came about because of restrictions in fuel supply during the 1950s caused by the Suez crisis. Designer Alec Issigonis was tasked with designing a car that was more frugal than the large cars of the day, aiming to compete with increasingly popular German bubble cars like the original VW Beetle - itself a design classic. The original design became a true British icon, influencing a generation of car designers, and was revolutionary at the time. Its distinctively diminutive contours remain hugely popular today.

02. Coke Contour Bottle

Instantly recognisable, the Coca-Cola contour bottle is a masterpiece in industrial design that dates back to 1915 when the Coca-Cola Company asked its bottle suppliers to design a new bottle that would be distinctive and instantly recognisable - even in the dark. Designer Earl R. Dean took up the challenge, and following instructions issued by his boss, aimed to come up with a design based on the ingredients of the drink. Unable to find any reference images for either the coca leaf, or the Kola nut, Dean instead used an image of a cocoa pod from his encyclopedia as inspiration, leading to the iconic ribbed bottle shape we know and love today.

03. Piaggio Vespa Scooter

The classic Vespa scooter design is associated heavily with the Italian design aesthetic, but it was actually heavily influenced by pre-World-War-II Cushman scooters made in the US and shipped to Italy by the Allies to act as field transport for paratroopers and marines during the war. It wasn't until Paggio involved aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio that the now familiar scooter shape, missing the central supporting spar and allowing the rider to step through the bike to get on and off.

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04. Hasselblad 500C Camera

During World War II the Swedish government tasked Victor Hasselblad with designing a camera that mirrored a German aerial surveillance camera recovered from a downed plane. This camera was refined over the following years, eventually spawning the iconic 500C in the late 1950s. Such was the popularity of the camera, it became the anchor product for the Hasselblad company for the next four decades, and was used by NASA during the Apollo missions to the moon.

05. Alessi Juicy Salif

Designed by Phillipe Starck in 1990, the Juicy Salif is rightly counted amongst the icons of industrial design and has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The citrus squeezer is cast in aluminium which is then polished, the design based on the shape of a squid and according to an account from the founder of Alessi was originally sketched out by Starck on a napkin while eating squid with lemon squeezed over it. It's a perfect example of how the most abstract associations can inspire iconic design.

06. Edge of Belgravia Knife

How often does a knife get included in the D&AD Annual? UK designer Christian Bird created a perfectly balanced industrial design that weighs up a sleek ceramic blade that never needs sharpening with an angular, soft touch handle. A work of art as well as a precision cutting tool, each knife is available in a limited edition run of 999.

07. Rocking Wheel Chair

German industrial designer and concept artist's Mathias Koehler's fresh, bold take on the staple favourite of knitting grandmothers the world over curls round into a sleek, circular shape, enabling a fluid rocking motion that also powers a reading light at the top. It remains at a concept stage.

08. Dyson cyclone vacuum

A classic example of totally rethinking the way a staple household product functions. In the 1970s, James Dyson was inspired by an industrial cyclone system in a sawmill to develop a bagless vacuum cleaner - and famously made over 5,000 prototypes in a workshop behind his house before perfecting the DC01. Many different models of this classic industrial design have been developed since, including a handheld version.

09. Bergmönch bike

Hurtling down steep, rocky terrain on a mountain bike is a powerful adrenaline rush, but reaching the summit in the first place can be a slow, painful slog. For a mountaineer, however, the ascent is the best bit, while the downward leg is a killer on the knees. This lets you do both, by transforming a bike into a backpack to let you carry it easily.

10. Cipher drinking glass

Serbian designer Damjan Stanković has put fresh twists on everything from a tea infuser to a spaghetti fork, but this quirky take on a drinking glass is particularly inspired. When empty, it's covered in a seemingly random mosaic, but when filled with coloured liquid (milk, orange juice or cola, for instance) the squares join up to spell the name of the drink.

11. Eames Lounge Chair

A unrivalled 1950s classic, Charles and Ray Eames' lounge chair and ottoman combo was the couple's first attempt at high-end furniture. Fashioned from moulded plywood and leather, it was distinctive among luxury counterparts for being very comfortable as well as stylish. Constantly in production since its launch, the classic industrial design forms part of the permanent collection at MoMA in New York.

12. Plumen 001 light bulb

Samuel Wilkinson's stylish approach to a humble lightbulb scooped a coveted D&AD Black Pencil award last year. Fluorescent glass tubes twist around each other in an organic yet harmonious way, giving the bulb a different silhouette depending on where you stand. The aesthetic appeal of this brilliant industrial design is counterbalanced by the fact it uses 80% less energy than an incandescent bulb.

13. iPod/iPhone/iPad

Three indisputably game-changing product lines by arguably the world's most iconic and celebrated industrial designer, Sir Jonathan Ive - all of which could easily have made the list on their own. It all started back in 2001 with the original iPod; the first iPhone was released in 2007; the iPad followed three years later; and finally the iPad Mini in 2012.

Despite squeezing all of its iOS devices into one entry, Cupertino's finest still made the list twice. Spearheading the reinvention of Apple in the late '90s, the all-in-one, brightly-coloured translucent computer made its rivals' beige boxes look crushingly ordinary. Since then, its evolution has seen it grow more sleek, slim, and minimalist, but no less iconic.

15. Rising Table

Based on a similar concept to his Rising Chair, Robert Van Embricqs' Rising Table uses a single piece of wood as a starting point to transform into a stylish piece of furniture. Challenging the notion of a table having to be a flat surface and four separate legs, it opts for an organic latticework of beams that are beautiful and functional in equal measure.

16. Curl Lamp

Designed by London-based industrial designer Sebastian Bergne, this beautifully simple table lamp concept was launched at Interieur 2012 in Belgium. It uses adjustable LED lighting to cycle between cool and warm white light, while the curved design encourages users to place the lamp in different positions.

17. 22 Hybrid Tube Amplifier

Another masterclass in minimalism, Koichi Futatsumata's inspired industrial design questions the overly complex design of traditional valve amplifiers, instead balancing two beautifully simple amplifier tubes on the top with two large stylish dials on the front, all packaged up in a sleek metal outer shell - and was nominated for a D&AD Award in 2011.

18. KitchenAid stand mixer

Pioneered in 1914 for industrial use on US Navy battleships, the KitchenAid stand mixer first entered homes in 1918, but it was in the 1930s that Egmont Arens' patented silhouette - relatively unchanged ever since - turned the product into an icon of American industrial design, which is exhibited in San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.

19. Moody Aquarium Sink

Okay, so it may not be the most practical addition to the average home - setting you back a tidy $4,500 - but this indulgent take on the humble wash basin is a bit of fun, and questions why we should accept plain porcelain. Sold, fittingly, through a company called Opulent Items, it enables you to keep fish in your bathroom, should you wish to.

20. Ladder (concept)

Just 20mm thick, this experimental concept for a domestic ladder innovates on the rotational moulding process to create a lightweight, super-strong product that's both stylish and functional. This imaginative industrial design is a joint venture between Andrea Gross Gaiani, Alessio Monzani, Kerman Gomez and Martina Fagiani, who studied together in Milan.

21. Tip Ton chair

Another brutally simple, plastic-moulded concept, this time for a chair, Barber Osgerby's Tip Ton lets you switch between two different seating postures: relaxed, or forward-leaning. Its unique shape means that when you rock forward, the chair stays in place on its uniquely shaped 'skids'. This industrial design is also lightweight, durable and stackable, and won a D&AD Yellow Pencil.

22. Anglepoise lamp

This classic piece of industrial design was originally conceived in 1932 by George Carwardine, a car designer who was working on vehicle suspension systems at the time. It was his work in this field that inspired the versatile four-spring mechanism that defines the Anglepoise lamp, which was developed primarily for working environments such as workshops and surgeries, but a simpler three-spring version soon made it into homes too.

23. LO Mindport

Dubbed "the workspace of the future" by its creators Lista Office, Mindport was designed by multi-award-winning creative team Carmen and Urs Greutmann. Built primarily from steel, this industrial design is about functionality and versatility, creating screened zones for ad-hoc meetings while keeping an open-plan feel.

24. Maglite

Introduced in 1979 with krypton or xenon bulbs and variable-width beams, many Maglites have become collectable items thanks to their limited-run special editions and custom paint schemes. They now use LED bulbs, and thanks to their power and durability are the flashlight of choice for many police forces. Until recently, this included the LAPD - until their double-use as a baton became controversial.

25. Blow radiator

Another example of a relatively nondescript household item given a radical conceptual overhaul by an imaginative industrial designer, Jean-Marie Massaud's sculptural radiator for Cordivari draws inspiration from the ocean waves - and is available in both horizontal and vertical orientations.

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Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity , published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World , T3.com and Tech Radar . He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects. 

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INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN AND PRODUCT CASE STUDIES

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This paper describes the practical elements included in the first term of a second-year engineering module which was developed in alignment with CDIO standards. The students were assigned into teams based on their course of study (i.e. electronics, biomedical, and sports engineering). Each team would be free to choose, research, and evaluate three products with some relevance to their field. Aspects such as technology, regulations and user reviews would have to be considered within the analysis. The scientific principles involved in the products would have to be explained in reasonable depth and aspects such as product end-of-life management (sustainability) also mentioned. Multiple sources would have to be used such as scientific articles, product specifications, regulations, and online reviews. The students would have to use available resources without necessarily having the actual physical product at hand. Once the teams had gained insight on the products they would have to either choose one of the products to improve, or decide to design a new product, (relevant to their discipline). The teams would have to produce a report and a demonstrator of their designs by the end of term. The demonstrator would have to be a physical representation with some functionality that can effectively communicate the proposed concept. The students were expected to use the tools and experience gained during previous and prerequisite modules, for designing and prototyping. The report was also expected to contain references to the indicative reading. The module would be an opportunity to build upon previous knowledge obtained through both, core and specialized modules. Additionally, a research element was included both in terms of the students looking into the cutting-edge technologies of their subject but also in trying to push those boundaries. This study aims at describing the module rationale, and reflecting upon inclusivity, and pedagogical effectiveness.

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An industrial case study: QbD to accelerate time-to-market of a drug product

• Madalena Testas 1 ,
• Tiago da Cunha Sais 2 ,
• Leonardo Piccoli Medinilha 2 ,
• Katia Nami Ito Niwa 2 ,
• Lucas Sponton de Carvalho 2 ,
• Silvia Duarte Maia 2 ,
• Anderson Flores 3 ,
• Lígia Pedroso Braz 1 ,
• José Cardoso Menezes 1 &
• Cássio Yooiti Yamakawa 2 , 4  

AAPS Open volume  7 , Article number:  12 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The use of a Quality by Design (QbD) approach in the development of pharmaceutical products is known to bring many advantages to the table, such as increased product and process knowledge, robust manufacturing processes, and regulatory flexibility regarding changes during the commercial phase. However, many companies still adhere to a more traditional pharmaceutical process development—in some cases due to the difficulty of going from a theoretical view of QbD to its actual application. This article presents a real-world case study for the development of an industrial pharmaceutical drug product (oral solid dosage form) using the QbD methodology, demonstrating the activities involved and the gains in obtaining systematic process and product knowledge.

Introduction

In 1992, Dr. Joseph M. Juran introduced the concept of quality being designed into a product and that most quality issues were related to the way in which the product was designed in the first place (Yu et al., 2014 ). Over time, this Quality by Design (QbD) approach was translated into the pharmaceutical industry, reaching its most important evolution steps with the publication of three guidelines by the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), namely, ICH Q8(R2), Q9, and Q10 (ICH, 2009 ; ICH, 2005 ; ICH, 2008 ). These guidelines describe the elements of QbD: pharmaceutical development, quality risk management, and pharmaceutical quality system.

ICH Q8(R2) defines QbD as “a systematic approach to development that begins with predefined objectives and emphasizes product and process understanding and process control, based on sound science and quality risk management.” This is a clear and easy to understand description, at least in theory (ICH, 2009 ). In its form, QbD can be explained as an orderly, well-planned procedure to assemble and deliver quality. For that, it is required an extensive comprehension of how the product and process factors impact quality (Malik et al., 2019 ).

But how to go from definitions and guidelines to an actual process and product development in a real-world situation? The uncertainty in the answer drives many companies away from QbD and to adhere to a more traditional approach to pharmaceutical development. Figure 1 represents a workflow with all the important elements that must be present in a QbD development of a pharmaceutical product.

Quality by Design methodology applied for a pharmaceutical product development

Just like the ICH Q8(R2) guideline indicates, one of the first elements to be defined is the Quality Target Product Profile (QTPP)—a summary of the desirable quality characteristics a product should have to ensure the desired quality, taking into account safety and efficacy of the drug product to the patient (Yu et al., 2014 ; ISPE, 2011 ). The end goal of process development is the definition of a control strategy that ensures that the process consistently delivers a product with the quality for which it was designed. The multidimensional combination and interaction of process inputs that have demonstrated to maintain the Critical Quality Attributes (CQA, i.e., the product quality characteristics that are critical for ensuring the safety and efficacy from a patient’s perspective) within their specification (and thus, assure quality) is called the Design Space (DS) (Yu et al., 2014 ; ICH, 2009 ; ISPE, 2011 ). This concept brings certain regulatory flexibility to the table, since alterations made within the DS are not considered changes (ICH, 2009 ). The elements represented in Fig. 1 are obtained using risk management and knowledge management methodologies. The combination of risk assessment (RA) and data analysis is one of the stone pillars for QbD and the opportunities for acquiring and managing knowledge based on this arrangement are central for a successful QbD pharmaceutical development and lifecycle management.

A drug product development case study

Herein, we describe how the QbD approach and its concepts, summarized in Fig. 1 , were applied to a real-case development of a generic pharmaceutical drug product (DP), i.e., of a drug intended to be submitted to the regulatory agencies as an alternative to a brand-name drug (patent-protected). The project’s goal was to develop a generic two-API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) solid dosage oral form using the QbD approach outlined in Fig. 1 , in order to obtain a deeper product and process understanding to expedite time to market, assure process assertiveness and reduce risk of defects after product launch. Limitations of this work are the ones typical of the development of a generic DP, where the physicochemical characteristics of the reference listed drug (patent-protected brand-name drug) must be considered. The proposed generic DP must be comparable to the innovator DP in dosage form, strength, route of administration, quality, performance characteristics, and intended use. So, the generic manufacturer must scientifically demonstrate that his product performs in the same way as the innovator drug with respect to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties (e.g., by performing bioequivalence studies) for it to be approved for sale after the patent protections expire. This work is the result of a collaborative project between 4Tune Engineering and Libbs Farmacêutica.

Materials and methods

The pharmaceutical product considered in this case study consists of a generic two-API oral solid dosage form—coated tablets. Tablets are amongst the most common oral solid dosage forms and consist of a compressed powder formulation comprised of API(s) (or drug substance(s)) and inactive ingredients or excipients (e.g., fillers, binders, lubricants, disintegrants, coatings). A generic drug contains the same API as the original (patent-protected) innovator drug, but may vary in certain characteristics, such as the manufacturing process, formulation, and packaging. In this case study, the tablets have distinct dosages of the two active ingredients: one API is at very low amounts (2.5 mg), whereas the other is at a very high dose (up to 200 to 400 times higher). The reference DP is already available in the market to patients, with no reported risks related to drug-drug compatibility or with safety concerns to the patients. The unit operations involved are those typical of the manufacturing process of a coated tablet form, such as materials dispensing, fluid bed granulation and drying, blending, compression, and tablet coating. For confidentiality reasons, the names of raw materials, intermediates and DP, manufacturing operations, parameter ranges, and other manufacturing details are not disclosed throughout this article. The results presented serve only the purpose of exemplifying the methodology used.

The authors’ goal with this manuscript is to provide, in the form of a case study, a brief outline of the steps involved in the application of the QbD methodology in the development of a pharmaceutical product. It is out of this paper’s scope to give a technical review or discussion of the methodologies and techniques comprised in the QbD toolkit, such as design of experiments and modelling approaches, and quality risk management tools. The interested reader should consult specialized literature for further methods’ details. Methodology aspects related with design of experiments, multivariate analysis, modelling, and quality risk management are given, as required for the purpose of this work, along the “ 5 ” section, while going through the case study.

The designed experiments and analyses described herein were performed in software JMP® version 13 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA, 1989-2019). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) modelling and computer simulations were performed in MATLAB® version 2018a (The Math Works, Inc., Natick, MA, USA) and using PLS_Toolbox version 8.7 (Eigenvector Research, Inc., Manson, WA, USA).

The QbD methodology followed along this project for knowledge and risk management was supported by the use of the iRISK TM platform (version 2.8) (iRISK, 2021 ) by the interacting multidisciplinary technical team. Several iRISK TM tools were employed, such as Process Mapping, Critical Quality Attributes assessment tool, Cause-Effect matrix for risk assessment and criticality analysis, and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) for process risk assessment.

Results and discussion

How to combine risk and knowledge in pharmaceutical development.

Following the QbD methodology (Fig. 1 ), one of the first activities conducted in this work was a criticality assessment (CA) for the identification of CQAs. For this, the project team gathered as much product-related information as possible from literature, specific data of the reference product, and the QTPP. Having a list with the product quality attributes and their respective target values/ranges is standard: fulfilling these targets is mandatory for batch release. However, assessing these characteristics from a risk-to-patient perspective might be more complex. From a list of about 20 potential Critical Quality Attributes (pCQAs) collected by the team, a ranking system for pCQAs’ CA was applied based on a criticality score that considered the risk for the patient of each quality attribute. Specifically, the criticality score is a quantitative measure given by the product between uncertainty and impact . The uncertainty measures the relevance of the available information (e.g, literature, prior knowledge, in vitro, clinical data), i.e., if there is variation in a quality attribute, are the consequences for the patient well-known? The impact measures how severe will the change of a given quality attribute be in terms of efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. By setting up a criticality threshold and a numeric ranking, it is possible to have the quantification of risk and a more exact approach for defining the criticality. For the CA, the team employed a scoring scale with 5 levels (Impact score: 2 (none), 4 (low), 12 (moderate), 16 (high), and 20 (very high); Uncertainty score: 1 (very low), 2 (low), 3 (moderate), 5 (high), and 7 (very high)). During this exercise, the attributes with low uncertainty and low impact were not considered critical and, therefore, were classified as non-CQAs (Fig. 1 ); Quality attributes with low severity but high uncertainty were considered critical - unless more information had become available to lower their uncertainty. The use of a systematic quality risk management platform for this exercise, specifically iRISK TM CQA Assessment tool (iRISK, 2021 ), ensured standardization of the definition of critical quality by allowing an alignment of methodologies, concepts and evaluation criteria by the involved technical teams. At the end of this step, the project team identified about fifteen CQAs, such as assay, content uniformity and dissolution of each API, water content, and impurities.

With a clear definition of the critical quality elements and respective targets, the manufacturing process can now be designed to meet those requirements (Fig. 1 ). Five different manufacturing processes were then considered and evaluated by the technical team based on process knowledge and experience, and given the product’s specificities (namely the technical challenges related with the manufacture of a DP having two APIs at extremely different concentrations). Figure 2 shows the process flowchart for the chosen process comprising 10-unit operations, including materials dispensing, powdered material seiving, solution/suspension preparation steps, fluid bed granulation and drying, blending, compression, and tablet coating.

Manufacturing process workflow of the pharmaceutical drug product (DP). The green boxes represent raw materials (RM)—both active pharmaceutical ingredients and excipients; the yellow boxes represent unit operations (UO ), and the blue box represents the final DP

In the next step of the QbD methodology (Fig. 1 ), the critical aspects of the product formulation and manufacturing process were assessed by following a combination of risk-based and data-driven approaches. A preliminary CA based on the reference product and/or similar products information (literature and prior knowledge) helped to identify which excipient and/or combination of excipients might present the highest risk of affecting the final product’s quality. This CA was performed using the risk tool Cause-Effect Matrix (CEM) (iRISK, 2021 ). In general terms, a CEM involves rating process inputs to process outputs based on their interaction impact, and then ranking process inputs based on the order of importance of the process output to the customer (ISPE, 2017 ; ISPE/PDA, 2019 ). For confidentiality reasons, the CEM generated at this stage of the project is not shown. It is similar to the CEM given in Fig. 4 , but has the formulation excipients in rows. The risk of a formulation component affecting a given final product’s CQA (entry of the CEM) was classified as low (score of 1), medium (score of 3), and high (score of 9) based on literature and prior knowledge, as stated above. This preliminary risk rank filtering of formulation components identified the two APIs and five excipients as having the highest impact on the product’s quality. Then, a design of experiments (DoE) approach (Montgomery, 2020 ) was followed to characterize these formulation components’ impact on the product’s CQAs, and their respective interactions, and therefore define the optimal quantities of each excipient in the drug formulation. A designed experiment consists of a set of trials, in which multiple input factors (independent variables) are manipulated to determine their effect on one or more response variables (dependent variables); these trails are run at different factor values (known as levels). DoE provides an efficient framework to do experimentation and thus increase process and product understanding and optimize processes. In fact, DoE can be applied for different investigation objectives, such as (1) screening studies (where the goal is to discover which are the most important factors that affect the process under study, given a large set of potential factors), (2) optimization studies (involve determining optimal factor settings to achieve a desired process objective), (3) regression modelling (where is goal is to produce a detailed mathematical model quantifying the dependence of response variables on process inputs, instead of just examining how factors contribute to a response), and (4) robustness studies (involve determining operational settings that are least affected by noise factors or uncontrolled factors variations (e.g., environmental variation, manufacturing variation) that might be expected during the process to ensure that the process is robust to them).

In this case, the formulation DoE was created using as factors the ratio between APIs (API-1/API-2, where API-1 is the low dosage API and API-2 is the high dosage one) and the percentage of five excipients (selected in the previous CA, as abovementioned). Based on the outcomes of the CA of the formulation components, the considered responses were the decrease in assay of each API, the amount of total impurities, and the amount of individual impurities of the final product. The type of screening design applied was a Definitive Screening Design (DSD) (SAS Institute, 2019 ). DSDs consist of an innovative and efficient class of screening designs, offering several advantages over standard screening designs (such as fractional factorial design). DSDs avoid confounding of effects (i.e., main effects are not confounded with each other or with two-way interactions) and can identify factors causing a nonlinear effect on the response (by employing three levels for each continuous factor—low, middle, and high—these designs allow estimation of quadratic model terms for continuous factors). Besides, DSDs require a small number of trials (e.g., with six or more factors, the minimum number of required runs is usually only a few more than twofold the number of factors). DSDs are appropriate for early-stage experimentation work, usually with four or more factors, and allow to perform screening, optimization, and robustness studies. These advantages of DSDs justified the selection of this type of screening against standard screening designs, such as fractional factorial designs, to perform the formulation screening and optimization studies, as a trade-off between budgetary constraints (time and resources) and knowledge expected to extract from the experiments. By applying a DSD, the formulation DoE therefore consisted of 13 trials, and each factor assumed three levels (low, middle, high).

Based on the DoE outcomes, multivariate linear regression models were built describing the relationship between the formulation components and the responses evaluated. These models were then used for formulation optimization (SAS Institute, 2019 ), i.e., to estimate the amount of each formulation component required to minimize the impurity profile of the drug product and minimize the decrease in assay. The formulation optimization was performed on the reduced models, i.e., models constructed after removing non-significant terms from the initial full DoE models (terms with a p -value above 0.05). The following three factors remained in the optimized multivariate linear models: API-1/API-2 ratio, amount of stabilizer, and amount of Excipient A. The optimal settings for the formulation components are represented in red in Fig. 3 (red dotted lines and red values). Each plot shows the effect of a given factor ( x -axis) on each of the responses ( y -axis). For example, the profiles indicate that: a) the % of Stabilizer in the formulation affects all the five responses (assay and impurity levels) and a lower content of Stabilizer has a detrimental effect on the DP assay; b) the amount of Excipient A in the formulation has no impact on Unknown Impurity B (flat line) but affects the other impurities; c) while the ratio of APIs has no effect on the DP assay (horizontal line), lower values of API-1/API-2 contribute to higher impurity levels of Unknown Impurity A and B.

Optimization of the product formulation using DoE studies. Each plot shows the predicted effect of a given factor in the x -axis (formulation component) on each of the responses ( y -axis). The red dotted lines indicate the optimized solutions for the responses of interest (lowest impurity levels and lowest decrease in assay in the final drug product)

Next, a similar approach based on a CA exercise using the CEM risk tool (iRISK, 2021 ) was applied for defining the critical aspects of the manufacturing process, specifically to determine the Critical Process Parameters (CPPs)—Fig. 1 . As per ICH Q8(R2), a CPP is “a process parameter whose variability has an impact on a CQA and therefore should be monitored or controlled to ensure the process produces the desired quality” (ICH, 2009 ).

The first step involved applying the CEM tool to rate the unit operations in terms of their impact on the product’s CQAs (scoring scale: low = 1; medium = 3; high = 9). These results supported a prioritization, in which the unit operations having the potential strongest impact (highest overall score) on the product’s CQAs were assessed first. As shown in Fig. 4 , unit operations UO2 and UO6 were the top-ranking ones.

Criticality assessment of the unit operations (UOs) using iRISK TM Cause-Effect Matrix. The risk of a given UO (in rows) affecting a given product’s CQA (in columns) was classified as low (score of 1), medium (score of 3), and high (score of 9). Due to confidentiality reasons, not all of the CQAs are shown. Given their higher overall score, operations UO2 and UO6 (highlighted) were identified as the top 2 UOs potentially affecting the product’s Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs)

These two process steps (UO2 and UO6) were then investigated by running DoEs with the goal of understanding which process parameters (PPs) were influencing the CQAs and in which extent. First, a prioritization step using the CEM tool (iRISK, 2021 ) was done in order to select from the original 20 PPs of UO2 and UO6, those to be considered for the DoEs. This PPs ranking was based on their level of impact in the final product’s quality (scoring scale: low = 1; medium = 3; high = 9), leading to the selection of 8 potential CPPs (pCPPs) for UO2, and 6 pCPPs for UO6 (not disclosed herein, due to confidentiality reasons). Then, in both cases, the DoE followed a DSD, given the advantages provided by this type of experimental design and the scope of the experimental work (process screening and optimization). Three levels were therefore considered for each factor in both DoEs (low, middle, and high); the DoEs considered 17 runs for UO2 (with 8 PPs used as factors and 7 CQAs as responses) and 13 runs for UO6 (with 6 PPs considered factors and 7 CQAs considered responses). The responses were the same for both DoEs and included relevant quality attributes of the final DP, such as assay, content uniformity, and dissolution. Figure 5 exemplifies how the knowledge obtained from the UO2 DoE analysis can support the identification of CPPs. The right-hand plot shows the true versus predicted values of Assay of API-1 obtained after fitting a multiple linear regression model to the UO2 DoE data. The model constructed to predict Assay of API-1 considers a quadratic term (UO2_PP4*UO2_PP4), three main effects (UO2_PP4, UO2_PP3, and UO2_PP6) and a two-way interaction (UO2_PP3*UO2_PP6). Criticality of UO2_PP3 and UO2_PP4 was thus set to critical (CPPs) in the criticality assessment table of iRISK TM (left-hand panel in Fig. 5 ) since the variability of these PPs is directly impacting at least one of the CQAs (assay of API-1 in this case) in a significant way (as given by the calculated p -values of the multiple linear models’ outcomes; model terms with a p -value below 0.05 are considered significant). Parameters UO2_PP1 and UO2_PP2 were also found to be critical, presenting a significant relationship with other CQAs at a 0.05 level (data not shown).

Update of the criticality assessment for the process parameters of unit operation UO2 in the iRISK TM platform (left-hand panel) based on the DoE outcomes (right-hand panel; the plot shows the actual versus predicted values by the model fitted for one of the responses evaluated in the DoE (assay of API-1)). Criticality of parameters UO2_PP4 and UO2_PP3 was set as critical (CPP = critical process parameter) since their variation affects the assay of API-1 (at the 0.05 significance level)

Regarding UO6, parameters UO6_PP1 and UO6_PP3 were found to be critical (data not shown). Besides confirming the criticality of potential CPPs of UO2 and UO6, the DoE results allowed defining a preliminary operating range for their PPs to be tested on the scale-up stage. For unit operations without a DoE analysis, results from additional experimental work were used to justify the criticality of their respective PPs. In the absence of evidence to classify a given PP as critical or non-critical, the PP was considered a pCPP. Overall, more than 10 PPs were identified as CPPs in the entire manufacturing process. Since most of the information was obtained at a small scale, the scaling up was a step of utmost importance. A small-scale DS was initially defined considering the knowledge obtained from the CA and the DoE results.

Process knowledge, scale-up studies, and control strategy definition

In the early stages of pharmaceutical process development, investigations are performed at a small scale. Transformations of the small-scale observations into commercial-scale development (Fig. 1 ) require different design strategies and different equipment which may cause differences in product quality (Raval et al., 2018 ). To cope with these potential differences in quality due to the presence of scale-up effects when transferring from small scale to commercial scale, the DS in commercial scale must be adapted accordingly.

For the presented case study process, an assessment of the unit operations indicated that both UO2 and UO6 were scale dependent. Ideally, a DoE should be performed at a commercial scale, using the knowledge collected at a small scale as the foundation for selecting PPs to be tested and their respective ranges. This scale-up DoE would allow to (a) confirm the criticality of the PPs, (b) define the optimal ranges for commercial-scale manufacturing, and (c) develop statistical models linking the CPPs with the CQAs. As for this project, it was not feasible to perform a full DoE at a commercial scale for UO2 and UO6. Instead, the process operational ranges for UO2 and UO6 were defined based on a small set of commercial scale batches manufactured at specific conditions, supported by knowledge acquired during the small-scale activities, as described next.

The methodology involved the use of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the available production batches (observations): 9 compliant batches (i.e., batches conforming to the acceptance criteria for all CQAs) and one non-compliant batch (i.e., a batch that failed to meet the acceptance criteria for at least one CQA). PCA is a multivariate projection method of data reduction or data compression. It transforms a large set of variables into a smaller dimensional set of new variables designated as principal components (PC), each of which is a linear combination of the original ones. In PCA, the new variables are uncorrelated; the first PC to be extracted (PC1) captures the highest amount of variability in the data set and each successive component accounts for as much of the remaining variability as possible (Jackson, 1991 ; Esbensen and Geladi, 2009 ; Næs et al., 2017 ). The dimensionality reduction provided by PCA allows a simplified representation of the data set, which facilitates exploring and interpreting its correlation structure. This feature of PCA was thus applied at this stage of the project to estimate the process operational ranges for UO2 and UO6. First, a PCA model was built using the values of the selected CPPs for UO2 and UO6 (total of 6 CPPs: 4 for UO2 and 2 for UO6) for the 9 compliant batches. This model allowed to obtain a simplified bidimensional representation of the two major sources of variability of the CPPs for UO2 and UO6, as denoted by the so-called score plot for the first two principal components of the model (PC1 and PC2). The score plot is a scatter plot of the scores of each sample (i.e., the projection of the sample/observation in the PC) on the two components and allows to examine the relationship between samples (Jackson, 1991 ; Esbensen and Geladi, 2009 ; Næs et al., 2017 ). The score plot for PC2 versus PC1 is shown in Fig. 6 A, where each green dot corresponds to a compliant batch (total of 9 batches, as mentioned above); these two components capture about 75.4% of the total variability present in the data. The score plot (Fig. 6 A) also shows the predicted scores of the non-compliant production batch (red dot) whose CPPs values were not used to build the original PCA model. The score plot was then used to obtain an initial estimate of the DS for UO2 and UO6: this corresponds to the rectangle area delimited by PC1 and PC2 scores of the compliant batches (green dots), which is outlined by the blue rectangle in Fig. 6 A. This region intentionally excludes the predicted non-compliant batch (red dot), since the goal is to define the process operating ranges for UO2 and UO6 expected to result in compliance batches. Note that these two components (PC1 and PC2) can be described as a linear combination of the CPPs (not given here), so the selected score plot region can be converted in ranges for each of the 6 considered CPPs of UO2 and UO6.

Definition of the operational ranges for UO2 and UO6 using PCA modelling and computer simulations. Top left panel ( A ): PCA score plot of the analysis of 9 compliant manufactured batches ( green dots ). The data set consists of the CPPs values measured for UO2 and UO6; the score plot represents the first two principal components (PC1 and PC2), which describe 53.7% and 21.7% of the variance in the data, respectively. The dashed line corresponds to the 95% confidence ellipse for the model scores. The red dot shows the model predicted scores for a non-compliant production batch. The blue outlined rectangle that covers only compliant batches defines a first estimate of UO2 and UO6 design space (DS). Top right panel ( B ): PCA model projections for two different sets of batch simulation runs (100,000 samples per run) made to refine the acceptable ranges for UO2 and UO6 CPPs. Each small point corresponds to the predicted model scores for a simulated batch (sample) that has been generated by considering random combinations of the CPPs values within a predefined admissible range (see text for further details). Predicted scores were projected onto the original score plot shown in panel A . The blue outlined rectangle represents the first DS estimate, as defined in panel A , and was used as an acceptance criterion for model predicted scores together with other two diagnostic statistics (Hotelling’s T 2 and sum of squared residuals). The small red and green dots correspond to a set of simulations made after a first refinement of the admissible values for CPPs, where simulated samples satisfying all the acceptance criteria are shown in green. The small blue dots represent the model outcomes for a final set of simulations made after a second (and final) refinement of the CPPs ranges, whereby all simulated batches were found to comply with the predefined acceptance criteria. Bottom panel ( C ): The table summarizes the initial experimental ranges of the manufactured compliant batches ( orange ) and the final restricted ranges ( blue ) obtained for each CPP of UO2 and UO6 based on the described methodology

The next stage of the procedure involved several batch simulation runs, whereby different combinations of the CPPs values within a specified range were randomly chosen to create new hypothetical batches (100,000 simulated batches). The first round of 100,000 simulated batches considered a broader range of possible values for UO2 and UO6 CPPs (namely, within 0.75 times below and 1.5 times above the lower and upper limits, respectively, reported by the 10 manufactured batches). The previously derived PCA model was then applied to these simulated batches, and only those batches satisfying the following three criteria were considered “acceptable” batches: (i) predicted score values for PC1 and PC2 within the defined DS estimate (blue rectangle in Fig. 6 A); (ii) Hotelling’s T 2 statistics below 80% of the maximum value obtained by the model, and (iii) a sum of squared residuals below 80% of the 95% confidence limit of the model residuals. Hotelling’s T 2 and squared residuals are two useful diagnostic statistics that allow assessing whether a sample has an unusual variance inside the model (sample with large Hotelling’s T 2 ) and/or outside the model (sample with large residuals). Hotelling’s T 2 (or sum of normalized squared scores) measures the distance from a sample to the centre of the model; The sum of squared residuals of a sample provides a measure of the distance between the sample and its projection on the model (i.e., lack of fit of the model to each sample) (Jackson, 1991 ; Esbensen and Geladi, 2009 ; Næs et al., 2017 ). These “acceptable” simulated batches were then employed to perform a first refinement of the CPPs ranges to use for UO2 and UO6, by assuming the 95% confidence interval for each CPP in the “acceptable” simulated batches. These new ranges of admissible values for CPPs were considered to generate a second set of random batches (100,000 batches). The resulting PCA model predictions are projected on the score plot in Fig. 6 B (small red and green dots) and were assessed based on the same acceptance criteria (i)–(iii) outlined above for prediction scores and the two diagnostic statistics. The simulated samples satisfying all the acceptance criteria correspond to the small green points shown in Fig.  6 B.

Finally, a second refinement of the allowable ranges for CPPs was made by running consecutive sets of batch simulations (100,000 batches per run) within decreasing ranges of CPPs values and assessing their PCA model predictions based on the previously defined acceptance criteria. The widest restricted ranges of CPPs values leading to a 100% “acceptance” rate of simulated batches were chosen as the final restricted ranges. The model projections for 100,000 simulations computed within these new restricted CPPs ranges are shown by the blue dots in Fig. 6 B. The restricted CPPs ranges are disclosed in Fig.  6 C (in blue; for comparison, the full ranges for the nine CQA-compliant production batches are included in orange). These CPPs ranges were employed to define the Normal Operating Range (NOR) for UO2 and UO6 and were applied at production to manufacture three validation batches, which fulfilled all quality requirements.

In parallel with the scale-up activities and following the QbD workflow (Fig. 1 ), a process RA was performed using the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) methodology. With a wide application in manufacturing industries, FMEA is a risk management tool used by many pharmaceutical companies for risk ranking; FMEA provides a systematic method of identifying and preventing system, product, and process problems before they occur (ICH, 2005 ; ISPE, 2017 ; ISPE/PDA, 2019 ; ASQ, 2020 ; Stamatis, 2003 ; Stamatis, 2019 ). Along the FMEA exercise (iRISK, 2021 ), a multidisciplinary technical team identified, analysed, and prioritized the risks, creating a list of all the failure modes that may occur during commercial manufacturing and the potential effects related to each failure. Additionally, the FMEA allowed the quantification of risks and prioritization for their mitigation and/or elimination by classifying the risk according to the severity of the effect, and the occurrence and detectability probabilities for the failure mode (Fig. 7 ). The risk priority number (RPN) allows the quantification of risk by multiplying severity, occurrence, and detectability values. Thus, FMEA represents a systematic methodology to rate the risks relative to each other. For that, a rating scale for severity, occurrence, and detectability was agreed between the technical team and applied along the FMEA activity. The scale considered a 5-level rank of even values ranging from 2 to 10. Additionally, it was defined beforehand a threshold value for RPN (in this case RPN of 288) above which mitigation actions should be defined to reduce the risk.

Decomposition of risk in severity , occurrence and detectability , and identification of the source of knowledge used for their assessment (CQAs, critical quality attributes)

Severity was attributed according to the impact of the identified risk on the product’s quality and compliance, by extension, based on the impact for the patient. For example, if a risk describes an increase outside the operating range for a certain PP and that increase causes the CQA to go out of specification, adversely affecting the patient’s health, then the risk severity was classified as very high (rank of 10). If a given failure does not affect the product’s quality and the patient’s health and safety, its severity is ranked as very low (rank of 2). Likelihood of occurrence was quantified in terms of how often that event might occur during routine batch manufacturing (a rank of 2 if the failure is unlikely; a rank of 4 if the failure has a probability of occurrence below 1%; a rank of 6 if there are 5 occurrences in 100 events; a rank of 8 if the failure is frequent but with a probability below 10%; and a rank of 10 if the failure is very frequent with a probability of having more than 3 occurrences in 10 events).

During scale-up and additional batches manufacture, certain failure modes with a low occurrence frequency during development were often observed (i.e., had high probability of occurrence); this reveals the importance of revising the RA throughout the product’s lifecycle. The same principle applies to the likelihood of detection, which quantifies how easy and quick the detection of a certain failure mode is. The detectability scale ranged from 2 (if the failure mode was easily and always detected) to a rank of 10 (when the failure mode was hard to detect and only detected in less than 67% of the cases).

Along the FMEA, about 100 failure modes were identified, with the majority (90%) being classified as easily and always detected (detectability rank of 2; and with a RPN not greater than 72) since there were reliable detection controls in place and the process automatically prevented further processing. Moreover, only 10% of the identified failure modes had a RPN equal to or greater than 128, but none exceeded the predefined threshold (RPN of 288).

More than 40% of the failure modes identified in the RA were related to UO2 operation, followed by UO7 operation with about 25% of the failure modes.

A robust control strategy, with a strong monitoring plan, can help reduce the occurrence and/or improve the detectability of specific failure modes, thus mitigating risk.

After finalizing the RA, despite none of the classified failure modes surpassing the RPN threshold, the technical team decided to address some of the ones with high-ranking RPN values. For example, a mitigation action was defined for a failure mode with a RPN value of 256. The action was a verification step for a certain equipment to check for its integrity status. By implementing this mitigation action, the RPN dropped to an acceptable value (RPN = 128) due to an improvement in the failure mode’s detectability (detection rank dropped from 8 to a value of 4). This verification step was added to the control strategy as a preventive control.

By the end of process development (Fig. 1 ), the process control strategy was defined based on the RA exercise and the characteristics of the NOR/DS. The control strategy was formalized in several facilitation sessions with a multidisciplinary team and the support of iRISK TM risk management platform (iRISK, 2021 ). The control strategy was composed by preventive controls (e.g., equipment calibration), detective controls (e.g., alarms), and in-process controls, amongst others.

• Product lifecycle management

By adopting QbD during pharmaceutical development, deep process and product understanding were obtained, allowing the creation of a knowledge base for the product. With a higher understanding of the relationship between the process and the product, it is possible to know what impact a certain change in process will have, supporting the decision-making flow (ISPE, 2011 ). Besides, it is important to update the knowledge base whenever a critical change (e.g., change in supplier, change of equipment) or deviation (e.g., equipment out of calibration, error in following a given operating instruction) occurs. The change control system handles changes done in the context of continuous improvement or by necessity (e.g., change of a raw material supplier). The change must be evaluated with a knowledge and risk-based approach, hence why it is important to keep the risk and knowledge base updated. Depending on the type of change, its implementation might require prior approval from the regulatory authorities (ICH, 2019 ). There is an interactive flow of information between the risk management and data/knowledge management systems, as represented in Fig. 8 . The use of monitoring systems and the establishment of a Continued Process Verification (CPV) plan, as well as the application of data analysis strategies, allow the continuous flow of knowledge regarding the state of the process. This information can be used to update the RA, supporting the identification of new risks that might be detected and revision of existing ones. Depending on their criticality, risks might have to be addressed and the control strategy may need to be improved by implementing risk mitigation actions. An improved control strategy should be able to keep the process in control; this can be monitored in the CPV programme. This flow of information should be managed during the entire product’s lifecycle for the resulting knowledge base to be representative of the current situation regarding the product’s quality and the process’s performance.

Flow of data, knowledge, and risk: these are continuously being updated and iterating with each other throughout the product’s lifecycle

Product lifecycle management activities include all that was done through development until the product is no longer commercialized. It is important to look at lifecycle management at a commercial stage through a continuous improvement lens since it is about maximizing the value of the product to the patient (Tiene, 2017 ). This can include changes in formulation, process unit operations, packaging, delivery systems, or even the inclusion of Information Technology or automation solutions for improving and automatizing the collection and assessment of data and risks. The use of an up-to-date knowledge base regarding the product and process greatly supports the selection of improvement actions since their impact will be better understood.

This article describes a successful application of Quality by Design to the development of a pharmaceutical generic drug product (coated tablet form). By following a QbD approach, a significant reduction of 30% in the overall development and validation time was achieved when compared to a traditional approach. The collection of knowledge in a systematic manner allowed the definition of a robust process that will consistently achieve the desired product quality. Future decision-making and continuous improvement activities will likewise be supported by the gained product and process understanding. One may expect that its lifecycle management to be much less unpredictable given the much higher level of process and product knowledge established. Additionally, this methodology can be easily transferred to the development of other products, bringing in further acceleration to the standard pharmaceutical development process. Overall, a more efficient and with enhanced quality critical path was followed and shown feasible. This translates into higher quality, safety, and efficacy of medicines for patients.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to confidentiality reasons.

Abbreviations

Active pharmaceutical ingredient

Criticality assessment

Cause-effect matrix

Critical material attribute

Critical process parameter

Continued process verification

Critical quality attribute

• Design of experiments

Definitive screening design

Drug product

Design space

Failure mode and effect analysis

International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use

Normal operating range

Principal component analysis

Principal component

Potential critical material attribute

Potential critical process parameter

Potential critical quality attribute

Process parameter

• Quality by design

Quality target product profile

Risk assessment

Raw material

Risk priority number

Unit operation

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out as a collaborative project between 4Tune Engineering and Libbs Farmacêutica. 4Tune Engineering is a consulting company with over 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical area. Founded in 1958, Libbs Farmacêutica is a pharmaceutical company in the forefront of key innovation projects within Brazil’s industry: it is a pioneer in the launch of biosimilars and monoclonal antibodies in Brazil and currently produces ninety different products. We would like to thank all the departments involved in the project at Libbs Farmacêutica for their support, commitment, and dedication; we would also like to thank João Almeida Lopes for his technical contribution.

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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by MT, TCS, and LPM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MT and critically reviewed, commented, and edited by LPB. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. The final manuscript was prepared by MT and LPB. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Testas, M., da Cunha Sais, T., Medinilha, L.P. et al. An industrial case study: QbD to accelerate time-to-market of a drug product. AAPS Open 7 , 12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41120-021-00047-w

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Published : 24 December 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41120-021-00047-w

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• Pharmaceutical product development
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• Control strategy

Case Study: How Industrial Design Students Develop Videos to Connect with Potential Investors and Promote Their Ideas

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The rise of crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter and IndieGogo have had a significant impact on the business of Industrial Design. During the last ten years, industrial designers have been able to raise capital from online investors and donors to kick start their own projects. This phenomenon also had a significant impact on Industrial Design education. Students are now able to use these online platforms to test their ideas and eventually crowdfund their own projects after graduation.

Connecting directly with potential investors or donors is critical for the success of any design project. Popular platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow designers to launch video campaigns that investors and donors can watch, evaluate and decide what type of project they want to support.

Industrial Design students and professionals typically rely on a combination of digital tools such as computer imagery/animations, 3D printed models and prototypes to communicate their ideas. Launching a video campaign online requires knowledge of all these tools plus basic understanding of video production, marketing, branding and entrepreneurship. Since the goal of any video campaign is to raise funds from investors, the campaign has to be engaging and easy to understand.

This case study will discuss the challenges and present solutions utilized by Industrial Design students to engage their online audiences. Students will use a blog to present a combined business and design plans. This research paper describes how Industrial Design students deliver campaign videos to promote their own brand.

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Indiegogo: Indiegogo. https://www.indiegogo.com . Accessed 1 Feb 2021

Kickstarter: Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/ . Accessed 1 Feb 2021

Gofundme: Gofundme. https://www.gofundme.com . Accessed 1 Feb 2021

Seedinvest: Seedinvest. https://www.seedinvest.com/ . Accessed 1 Feb 2021

Top 10 Crowdfunding Platforms of 2020. https://medium.com/@mahzeb/top-10-crowdfunding-platforms-of-2020-b837efcf25c22 . Accessed 1 Feb 2021

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Department of Industrial Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Cliff Sungsoo Shin

Dipartimento di Architettura, Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio, Pescara, Italy

Giuseppe Di Bucchianico

System Design and Management, Keio University, Musashino, Japan

Shuichi Fukuda

DAAP School of Design, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Yong-Gyun Ghim

Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Gianni Montagna

Cristina Carvalho

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Rivera-Chang, J. (2021). Case Study: How Industrial Design Students Develop Videos to Connect with Potential Investors and Promote Their Ideas. In: Shin, C.S., Di Bucchianico, G., Fukuda, S., Ghim , YG., Montagna, G., Carvalho, C. (eds) Advances in Industrial Design. AHFE 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 260. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80829-7_2

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Industrial Design Case Study: A Package Management System

Formation design group tackles hellopackage.

These days an ID firm might be called on to design a system, rather than a product. Package Solutions is a company seeking to solve the problems of delivering packages to multi-resident buildings and student housing. They hired Formation Design Group to work out the solutions.

"The rapid growth of e-commerce has overwhelmed last mile package delivery, particularly in multifamily residential communities," the firm writes. "Formation worked with Package Solutions to streamline their user experience and commercialize their cutting edge package tracking technology."

Beyond the Room

Using contextual research as a basis, Formation conceptualized a multitude of mobile application features to improve resident experience, create opportunities for additional revenue and provide new amenities. The mobile application empowers residents, carriers, and staff to interact with the HelloPackage system while away from the community. Beyond package delivery, the system engages with residents to provide useful features that fit seamlessly into the rhythm of life in a multifamily community.

Creating Community

Using the HelloPackage app residents can send, receive, transfer or redirect their packages. The system allows trusted roommates, neighbors and staff to retrieve packages for each other and rewards them with points redeemable for merchandise stored on secured shelves and other benefits. Features like these build community, increase package throughput, and ultimately allow people to get their stuff in the way that works best for them.

An Adaptable Platform

HelloPackage's hardware was designed to be minimal, attractive and adaptable. The system is based on a simple kit of parts that can be combined to adapt to any space. The system can be easily expanded to scale with a community's needs. Sheet metal construction provides an efficient, durable platform with limitless design and aesthetic possibilities.

This integrated hardware/software system makes managing packages easier for community staff, carriers and ultimately for the resident/recipient.

The solution is a powerful combination of software & hardware that revolutionizes the package delivery experience for apartment staff, residents and carriers.

<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/320496682?h=32a09cd291" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You can see more of Formation's work here .

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• ui/ux design
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10 Exceptional Product Design Portfolios with Case Study Breakdowns

After working with many designers throughout my own career and helping many more build their job-ready portfolios, there are a few designers that I keep coming back to for inspiration and some that are inspiring a new generation of UI/UX and Product Designers to enter the field.

I've chosen 10 of our favorite UI/UX and Product Designers—a colorful tapestry of digital product architects that have evolved from graphic designers, marketers, architects, engineers and everything in-between. Their unique backgrounds and journey bring something special to our industry and illustrate how we can all do more meaningful, interesting and impactful work:

There are 10 things in particular that make these 10 designers really stand out:

• They have each honed their craft from the bottom up (whether having gone through a traditional academic program, an online course like DesignerUp , or being self-taught).
• They are all at different stages of their careers (some newly minted and others seasoned veterans).
• They continue to learn, grow, push the envelope, document and share their genuine experiences.
• They each hail from a different background (and sometimes non-design industry) that informs who they are and what they work on as a designer.
• Their evolution is apparent in their work.
• They are passionate about the problems they solve and find joy in connecting with the users they serve.
• They are transparent about their processes, thoughtful in their communication about it and not afraid to show what worked and what didn't.
• They have focused portfolios that reveal their unique point of view as a designer.
• They are a diverse group of designers from different cultural, gender and socio-economic backgrounds.
• They have so much to teach us all about design and how to use it to express authenticity and to understand and help others do the same.

Case Study Format:   http://simonpan.com/work/uber/

• The Challenge
• Early Insights
• Reframing the Problem
• The Redesign
• Design Strategy

“In a city as busy as San Francisco, over $1 million was wasted per week because of problematic pickups.”

Madeline Wukusick

Madeline is a graduate of our DesignerUp Product Design course. She was able to create an incredible portfolio working through our curriculum, blended with her background in graphic and data design that set her up for immediate success landing professional design roles.

Case Study Format:

• The Observed Problem
• The Research
• In the Insights
• The proposed How Might We Statements
• Lean Canvas and Product Strategy
• Business Requirements
• The Solutions and MVP Features
• Things that could be improved

"Thanks for helping me work through these iterations—it's been tremendously helpful! You have such a knack for fine-tuning and teasing out subtle themes that I hadn't noticed before. From these comments, I have a better sense of some of my growth areas to work on and ways in which to push myself. It also helped me realize that I am most interested in hybrid roles, or at least roles with a strong visual component. Really grateful to have discovered this course :-)" - Madeline

Not an Italian mobster; Johny Vino is an engineers' designer. I've been a long time admirer of his work every since his mind-blowing animations and micro-interactions arrested me mid Dribbble scroll many years ago. He is a thoughtful, meticulous designer that understands how to align user and business goals all while transmuting conventional interaction patterns into something that is altogether transcendent yet familiar.

Case Study Format: https://johnyvino.com/

Process, Goal and Task Oriented that varies with each project

• What he worked on
• What he aim to accomplish
• Business Goals
• Representation of complex data
• Integration

Humans are not perfect. I like to apply 3 principles to ever product I design to help me focus on that. Fitt's Law, Mimicry, Aesthetic Usability Effect

Steph Parrott

Steph is a product designer based in Toronto. Currently working on Plantd and most recently at Square in San Francisco.

Case Study Format: https://www.stephparrott.com/plantd/

• Roles and Process
• App Overview
• Feature proposal
• Design to Development
• Looking to the future and what's next

"As someone who hasn’t eaten meat in almost 20 years, I’m highly motivated to put in the work to find plant-based options, but for those starting to dabble, how can we except them to do the same?" - Steph

Tom is the co-founder of the community and event series Design Club , and an investor & advisor to Bricklane . He currently works  own clients, helping invent, design, and launch new ventures. Before that he held design leadership roles at fashion and fintech startups, and was as a senior designer at a global agency. Case Study Format: http://tom.pe/gc-dashboard.html

• Summary of the problem space, challenges, project and contribution
• Goal and Problem
• Design Principles applied
• Proposed solution and representation of dashboard and data
• Design frameworks used
• Future considerations

"The problem here is that by trying to create something for everyone, we risked helping no one. Avoiding the design equivelant of an identity crisis became a big focus of mine. I'd do this by finding ways to inject a point of view into the product. By knowing what it wasn't, as well as what it was." - Tom Petty

Want to create an incredible portfolio like these full of amazing case studies to get you hired? Enroll in our Product Design Course today!

Garett MacGillivray

Much like myself and other designers of a particular generation, Aussie/Canadian Garett MacGillivray has been around the block and through the evolution of graphic designer, web design, UI/UX Designers and now landed squarely as a full stack Product Designer.

Case Study Format: https://aucadian.com.au/project/goloop

• Exploration and Ideation
• Component Library
• B2B product interface

I've had many labels throughout my career in the digital industry. It's safe to say that I enjoy crafting digital experiences.

Elise is a Bay Area designer that jumped to the bay from NYU. She comes from an advertising and marketing background and has fine tuned her communication skills and processes vast knowledge of the tech and digital product industry has a whole having been on the broadcasting and marketing side of things.

Case Study Format: http://www.elisefu.com/work-komeeda/

• Impact/Metrics
• User testing
• User research
• Information Architecture
• Implementation
• Major Findings
• Formal User Testing

I was driven to design because I felt excited and rewarding to learn about people’s goals and desires, help them solve problems and make their lives easier.

Latiesha Caston

Latisha is a User Experience Designer passionate about holistic, accessible, and inclusive design, based in Seattle.

Case Study Format: https://www.latieshacaston.com/veggie-grill-online-ordering-experience

• The Problem
• The High-level Goal
• The approach
• Pain Points
• Optimizing flow and improving architecture
• Interaction model breakdown
• Looking to the future

"Our high level goal was to design a holistic order-ahead experience that keeps the core of what we've built, while delivering on opportunities, addressing pain points, and setting the stage for the future." - Latisha

Karolis Kosas

Having recently joined the amazing design team at Stripe as a Product designer, Karolis's portfolio is clean and minimal and his case studies really understand the mental model of the user, getting into their heads and revealing the friction points they are feeling and how he can insert a solution that improves on the experience with compromising the soul of the designer.

Case Study Format: http://karoliskosas.com/cinemaclub/

• prototyping
• Built the product from zero

Visual communication is a self-sufficient organism capable of adapting and evolving based on the input of multiple sources.Acting in such context, the designer is an initiator, establishing methods and boundaries for the system to establish itself as an independent entity.

Rohit Singh

One of o ur very own graduates ! Rohit Singh is an up and coming product designer with a focus on helping early-stage startups and new businesses blossom.

Rohit outlines his process for creating an MVP for his digital product from scratch, which serves as a sort of physical and virtual library for the poorest class of India.

Case Study Format: https://work.khadush.in/booksite-an-online-physical-book-sharing-platform/

• Inspiration
• User Interviews
• Lean Canvas
• Visual Design
• Final Words

I specialize in helping early stage startups validate their riskiest assumptions using leading design methods

After analyzing all of these case studies and working with 100s of designers in our product design course to get them ready for the job application process, we've created our own tried-and-true templates to make it easy for designers to replicate the successful format and structure of these top portfolios using Notion .

Each of these amazing portfolios tells the story of the product designer, their evolution, their process and shows what they bring to the world. But it's not easy doing what they do or knowing exactly how to show and tell who you are as designer. Having a solid design education and getting feedback from the design community is the best way to ensure that your work is up to par and being presented in a way the shows your skills and your worth.

Have a look at our partners' advice over at Pathrise on building a strong UX design portfolio .

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Celebrating 20 Years of IP Excellence

Summary of Indian Industrial Design Cases of 2019

This post provides some important Industrial Design cases decided in India in 2019. It is noteworthy that some important principles with respect to design protection and interface with trademark protection have been laid down during the year.

Super Smelters Limited and Ors. Vs. SRMB Srijan Private Limited, MANU/WB/2975/2019.

Decided On: 18.12.2019 Court: Calcutta High Court In this case, the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court upheld the decision of the Single Judge to grant ad interim injunction in favour of the Respondent, restraining the Appellants from passing off its X ribbed TMT bars. The Court concluded in the case that there was no need to interfere with the Single Judge’s judgment as it was not arbitrary, capricious or perverse in any manner. While arriving at its conclusion, the Court expounded the law with respect to protection of trademarks and designs over shape of articles or products. It pointed out that functional shapes of goods cannot be protected as trademarks or designs. However, if the shape has ornamental elements in addition to the functional elements, the shape is protectable as trademark as well as design. According to the Court, the existence of functionality in a shape does not deprive a shape of trademark or design protection. The question is not whether the function is achievable from a shape or a few given shapes, but whether the shape has aesthetic and non-functional elements. An action for passing off of a trademark may be based on common law trademark rights in shape of goods. Cancellation or expiry of industrial design protection does not deprive the trademark owner of trademark rights over his product based on shape. In other words, industrial design and trademark protection over shape are independent of each other, and may co-exist with each other. The Court stated that the X ribbed TMT bars did not lose trademark protection after cancellation of design registration as the cancellation was not related to the shape and its relationship with functionality of the bars.

Lucky Exports Vs. The Controller of Patents and Designs and Ors., MANU/WB/1173/2019.

Decided On: 10.05.2019 Court: Calcutta High Court The Court in this case set aside an order rejecting the application for cancellation of a registered design pertaining to Coaster Brake Hub Sub-Assembly because the Controller had not determined whether the design possessed aesthetic appeal, and did not consider novelty, originality and prior publication for determining registrability. The Court stated in the case that the design of a sub-assembly that forms part of the Coaster Brake Hub can be registered if it is capable of being made and sold independently. It further pointed out that a design may be protectable if some of its features appeal to the eye even if the design is functional. A mere mechanical device is not protectable if the design is purely functional, but if it has features, which are not functional, it is registrable as a design. The Court stated that if a design appeals to the eye, and if what appeals to the eye can be separated from its function, a design is protectable.

International Cycle Gears Vs. The Controller of Patents and Designs and Ors., MANU/WB/1174/2019.

Decided On: 10.05.2019 Court: Calcutta High Court On a petition for cancellation, the Controller cancelled a design pertaining to “Coaster Brake Hub” based on prior publication and functional features. A design called Russian Model, which was similar to the registered design was published in Velo Bike Special Issue before date of filing by the design holder. On a comparison of the two designs, the Court felt that the designs were similar, and that the prior published Russian Model anticipated the design in question from the point of view of a prudent person. The Court in the case cited several judgments pertaining to novelty, originality and aesthetic appeal.

Crocs Inc. USA Vs. Bata India Ltd. and Ors., MANU/DE/0309/2019.

Decided On: 24.01.2019 Court: Delhi High Court In this case, Crocs sued Bata and others for infringement of its registered sandal designs, and passing off of its trademarks in shape and configuration of its foot wear. The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court did not interfere witht the single judge’s order denying the interim injunction to Crocs as the design registration was prima facie liable to be cancelled based on prior publication and novelty. As the designs were published on Crocs’ website before the filing date of the design application, the Court held that the validity of the design registration was in question based on previous publication. Also, as the designs claimed were mere modifications of pre-existing designs, the Court stated that novelty of the designs was in question. The Delhi High Court also upheld the grant of legal costs to the defendants in the case. Furthermore, the Court ordered the single judge to hear the passing off cases along with the registered design cases as they were based on the same cause of action.

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New Case Study: Overlap Between Industrial Design and Copyright Protection in India

In this new case study, we explore why in India copyright and industrial design protections are not complementary and how to act in order to avoid problems with the protection of your designs.

At the core of the case study is an independent European boutique designer, who - having developed goodwill and a reputation associated with a quality and unique clothing design in Europe - decided to expand its business operations to India as it had identified a high demand for international good quality designer products. From its experience in the European market, the designer was aware that clothing designs and sketches are automatically protected under copyright laws from the moment of their creation as mandated by the Berne Convention. The EU designer saw that India was also signatory of the Berne Convention, and therefore did not register its designs in India.

However, as the EU designer’s brand gained a growing reputation in India, it came to its attention that a local brand had started to copy its designs and sell look-alike clothes for substantially lower prices.

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We Put In Work ‍ A Selection Of Case Studies

CrawlBuddy: Crawl Space Tool System

Jigsawdio: STTR Prototypes for Testing

R(evolution)izing the roll-up steel door industry

It Takes Courage To Be Who You Truly Are

Providers Solving Complex Problems

Sound design. Transformative care.

Improving Accessibility

NAxtract™: Benchtop Automation

Ensuring Equal Access And Opportunity

Supporting Faculty Equity

Simple Eyewear Disinfection

Lighting The Way To Safety And Security

A Village For Mothers

Workout Gear that Doesn't Follow the Rules

Revitalizing A Town

Ergonomic Fit For Riders Of All Sizes

Are You Covered?

Infusion Device Changes The Game For Rapid Recovery

Safe Swimming For All

Shoelaces With Purpose

Healthcare In Action

Screening With Screens

Dentistry Made Fun

Healthcare Reimagined

Discover who we are.

Trig is an award-winning innovation and design firm that offers clients guided experiences in building a culture of innovation , understanding their customer needs , designing successful products , and developing lasting brands . Our comprehensive innovation process includes insights and ideation, product design, brand and digital experiences for start-ups, mid-sized, and Fortune 500 companies. We teach the principles of design thinking to use safe-fail techniques help manage risk and uncertainty in navigating the complex domain of innovation.

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• Published: 13 May 2024

The influence of rural tourism landscape perception on tourists’ revisit intentions—a case study in Nangou village, China

• Yuxiao Kou 1 &
• Xiaojie Xue 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  620 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Rural tourism development has an important impact on optimizing the rural industrial structure and stimulating local economic growth. China’s Rural Revitalization Strategy has promoted the development of rural tourism nationwide and emphasized Chinese characteristics in the process of local development. Based on the theoretical analysis of landscape perception, this article uses the external Landscape Perception→Satisfaction→Revisit Intention influence path as a theoretical research framework to construct a structural equation model to analyze the willingness of tourists to revisit rural tourism destinations. We selected Nangou Village, Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, as a key model village for rural revitalization, and conducted an empirical analysis. The empirical analysis results show that landscape perception has a significant positive impact on satisfaction and revisit intention. Tourist satisfaction has a significant positive impact on revisit intention and plays an intermediary role between landscape perception and revisit intention. The five dimensions of natural ecology, historical culture, leisure recreation, research experience, and integral route under landscape perception are all significantly positively correlated with revisit intention, with historical culture and integral route having the greatest impact on landscape perception. The survey about Nangou Village verifies the relationship between landscape perception, satisfaction, and tourists’ revisit intention. Based on the objective data analysis results, this study puts forward suggestions for optimizing Nangou Village’s tourism landscapes and improving tourists’ willingness to revisit from three aspects: deeply excavating rural historical and cultural resources, shaping the national red culture brand, and creating rural tourism boutique routes. It is hoped that the quantitative research method of landscape perception theory in Nangou Village can also provide a reference and inspiration for similar rural tourism planning.

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Introduction.

Rural tourism, which originated in Europe in the mid-19th century (He, 2003 ), has constructed a new type of urban–rural relationship—the attachment of the cities to the countryside and the integration of the countryside with the city (Liu, 2018 ). In the 1990s, with the continuous improvement of China’s urbanization level, rural tourism began to rise in response to the demand for returning to nature and simplicity (Guo and Han, 2010 ). The main body of rural tourism (i.e., the main target) is urban residents, and its object is a combination of enjoying the agricultural ecological environment, agricultural production activities, and traditional folk customs. These are presented through tourism industry planning and landscape product design, which is based on the unique production, life, and ecological resources in the countryside, and integrates sightseeing, participation, leisure, vacation, recuperation, entertainment, shopping, and other tourism activities (Zhang, 2006 ).

Rural tourism development is of great significance for optimizing the industrial structure in rural areas, realizing the linked development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, increasing farmers’ income, stimulating rural economic development, and accelerating the integration of urban and rural areas (Lu et al., 2019 ). Since the implementation of the Rural Revitalization Strategy, China has taken increasing rural tourism as one of the important ways to achieve it (Yin and Li, 2018 ) and has launched construction projects nationwide.

Rural tourism in China started with self-organized agritainment, with farming experiences and sightseeing leisure as the main projects (Guo et al., 2000 ). Early studies have found that rural tourism projects embodying regional characteristics, folklore, and participatory farming activities present stronger competitive advantages in terms of higher rates of tourists’ participation and revisit rates (Wang et al., 2005 ). In the process of the “localization” of rural tourism in China, rural tourism has undergone a top-down evolution. Since the central government’s comprehensive deployment of new rural construction in 2006, national departments and local governments have issued a series of policies to promote the development of rural tourism, leisure agriculture, and culture, which have promoted the prosperity of diversified, high-quality, and distinctive practices of rural tourism nationwide (Ma et al., 2007 ). The rural revitalization strategy is a crucial national policy at present in China, driving various initiatives such as the construction of beautiful countryside and the development of the rural tourism industry. This policy has given rise to trends like the inheritance of local culture, the promotion of green ecological concepts, and the integration of industries. However, there are still challenges encountered, such as the homogenization in tourism development and the necessity to coordinate the development of industries, culture, ecology, and economy. Under the policy guidance of developing the agricultural economy and revitalizing national culture, China has explored rural tourism landscape products that fit the national cultural context and market demand of the country. Its characteristics are mainly reflected at two levels: First, it focuses on the integration of ethnic and regional cultural perspectives. Rural tourism planning focuses on identifying geographical cultural aspects (Sun et al., 2008 ), integrating traditional Chinese red culture and local characteristics (Huang, 2003 ) into tourism landscape products, and creating Chinese cultural brands. Second, we should focus on upgrading traditional sightseeing, farming, folk customs, and leisure tourism projects, develop in-depth experiential research projects, and create a comprehensive boutique tourism route (Chen et al., 2021 ).

With the prosperity of rural tourism, the related research has gradually increased. Zhai ( 2015 ) pointed out that unique cultural and geographical landscapes are not only objects that should be emphasized and protected in the construction of the countryside but also important resources for the development of rural tourism. Zhang and Wang ( 2018 ) believed that the essence of rural tourism is the cultural experience of tourists in the countryside. Chen ( 2020 ) studied the “local sentiment” from an anthropological perspective as an important factor in promoting the development of China’s rural tourism market. Xu and Tang ( 2016 ) argued that local characteristics are essential for rural landscape construction, proposing the planning and construction strategy of “livability, suitability for industry, suitability for tourism, and suitability for culture”. Shi ( 2021 ) pointed out the significance of ecological esthetics theory to the planning and design of rural tourism landscapes and proposed the strategy of integrating local characteristics with ecological features and improving the ecosystems through artistic techniques. Most of the research has focused on the development and upgrading strategies of Chinese rural tourism landscapes from the supply-side perspective but lacks studies on what kind of experience and value tourists expect from the demand-side perspective, and the research methods lack scientific quantitative analyses.

Satisfaction and revisit intention are used to evaluate the perception and experience of rural landscapes, which directly reflect tourists’ actual feelings about the resource endowment, operational management effectiveness, social and cultural environment, and rural landscape planning in the area (Zhang et al., 2014 ). Landscape perception emphasizes the mutual influence of tourists’ perception of the tourism environment (Echtner and Ritchie, 1993 ), recognition of the location (Middleton and Hawkins, 1998 ), preferences (Zhang et al., 2017 ), and other aspects, while the revisit intention reflects tourists’ willingness to experience an activity again (Xu et al., 2014 ). Strengthening tourists’ revisit intention in rural tourism is of great significance for stabilizing and increasing rural income and promoting sustainable development in rural areas. It is an important measure of whether the quality and style of rural areas have been improved and whether rural revitalization has been promoted (Li et al., 2022 ). Therefore, based on the objective data analysis results of tourists’ perception and satisfaction with rural tourism landscapes and their revisit intention, we can objectively and reasonably propose upgrading and optimization strategies for rural landscapes. The relationship diagram is shown in Fig. 1 .

The figure illustrates the interaction between subject and object in rural tourism.

This study selected Nangou Village in Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, as the research object. Based on the construction of traditional rural tourism facilities, Nangou Village has developed a certain number of distinctive tourism products that integrate production, learning, and research based on the Ansai folk culture and revolutionary humanistic resources in the region. However, as a key model village in China’s rural revitalization strategy, Nangou Village is still exploring a new round of optimization and upgrading. On the basis of the theory of landscape perception and a demonstrated impact mechanism between landscape perception and satisfaction, as well as revisit intention, combined with the perception results, this article proposes feasible strategies for the planning, design, and optimization of the tourism industry in Nangou Village.

Theoretical foundation

Landscape perception theory.

Landscape perception theory originated in the 1950s and is an independent theory developed for environmental psychology research. It combines the research paradigms and methods of environmental psychology and human geography (Deng, 2006 ) and aims to study people’s preferences (Guo et al., 2004 ), perception (Crompton, 1979 ; Fan et al., 2014 ), and satisfaction levels (Tribe and Snaith, 1998 ; Chi and Qu, 2008 ) of the objective environment. Ervin Zube et al. ( 1982 ) integrated the existing research paradigms of landscape perception—expert paradigm, psychophysical paradigm, cognitive paradigm, and empirical paradigm—and further proposed a theoretical model to unify humans, landscapes, and the results of their interaction into a closed loop. Landscape perception is essentially a process in which the human brain acquires environmental information through the sensory systems and then processes it (Purcell, 1987 ). In the interactive relationship between people and landscapes, the landscape is the perceived object while people are the main subjects of the environmental perception. The perception of landscapes is related to individual differences, involving experiences, memories, cognitive level, and social–cultural backgrounds (Qin, 2022 ; Cosgrove, 1984 ).

Based on subjective feelings and psychological evaluations of the surrounding environment, landscape perception further affects individuals’ emotions and environmental behaviors. An emotional state is a psychological product of individuals’ acceptance of external stimuli, combined with their own experiences and cognition, which is an important driving force that can promote individuals’ interactive behavioral responses. Motloch ( 2000 ) proposed that landscape perception will also generate emotional load after observation, recognition, and meaning attribution. Song ( 2013 ) summarizes it as a process of landscape stimulation, generation of feelings, sublimation of cognition, and emotional response. For such emotional reactions, scholars commonly use satisfaction and place identity to measure the positive affective state generated by landscape perception (Baker and Crompton, 2000 ). Behavioral responses are subjective reactions of people to approach or avoid external stimuli, which are especially influenced by their emotional state (Bitner, 1992 ; Mehrabian and Russell, 1974 ). Gobster ( 2008 ) argues that landscape perception is reflected both in cognitive and emotional aspects and that landscape preferences and emotional experiences can affect environmental behavior. Ostoić et al. ( 2017 ) believe that landscape perception emphasizes the mutual influence of tourists’ perceptions, recognition, preferences, and other aspects of the tourism environment, which can directly reflect the effectiveness of the tourism environment’s planning and design, and thus affect tourists’ behavior. In short, there are interactions between landscape environmental stimuli, emotional states, and behavioral responses, and landscape perception has a significant impact on an individual’s sense of environmental responsibility, environmental protection intention, and intention to revisit a destination (Wu et al., 2019 ).

Landscape perception and satisfaction, revisit intention

Satisfaction is a comprehensive feeling experienced by tourists during and after visiting a tourist destination (Chon, 1989 ). It can be an evaluation of a single dimension such as landscape products, tourism services, transportation accessibility, etc., or a comprehensive measure of overall satisfaction in multiple dimensions (Cole and Scott, 2004 ; Sailesh et al., 2023 ). Among them, the physical landscape environment is one of the most important dimensions that affects overall satisfaction (Chi and Qu, 2009 ). Oliver ( 1980 ) proposed the “expectation discrepancy model”, which refers to the process in which tourists form certain expectations based on their previous experiences before traveling, and then compare their expectations with their actual feelings during the travel process to determine their level of satisfaction. If the expectations are met, the tourists are satisfied; otherwise, they are not. The tourism landscape studied in this article is an important component in the study of tourist destination satisfaction, which directly affects the tourists’ selection of tourist destinations, consumption of tourism products and services, and willingness to revisit.

Behavioral intention is the result of rational cognitive processing of situational information by tourists, resulting from psychological comparison and judgment (perception value or satisfaction). In the existing research, tourists’ behavioral intentions are often described as tourists’ recommendation behavior and revisiting intention. Revisit intention refers to the behavioral intention of tourists to visit the destination again in the future (Hung and Petrick, 2011 ). Chen proposed that revisit intention should include two levels of behavioral intention: the intention of the tourists themselves to revisit this place, and the intention to recommend this place to their acquaintances. Xiu, on this basis, included whether tourists would prioritize this attraction in their travel choices into the evaluation indexes of revisit intention (Guo, 2016 ). In addition, some scholars have demonstrated that destination image perception, especially landscape perception, is a direct driver of tourists’ recommendation behavior and intention (Chew and Jahari, 2013 ; Nisco et al., 2015 ; Prayag et al., 2017 ), and satisfaction with the tourism destination is one of the strongest factors affecting revisiting behavior (Campo-Martínez et al., 2010 ; Humagain and Singleton, 2021 ).

In summary, the relationship between landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention has been demonstrated in relevant studies. In spite of this, it remains necessary to further the research on the influence paths of these three factors. For example, Xu et al. ( 2023 ) took the Qilian Village landscape renovation project as the subject of a case study to identify users’ perceptions of landscape characteristics through structural equation modeling. Although they explored the impact of landscape perception on satisfaction, no further study was conducted on users’ behavioral intentions via the influence paths. Similarly, Qu et al. ( 2023 ), referring to the ancient villages in southern Anhui as an example, explored the path to high-quality development of rural tourism from the perspective of the authenticity of rural landscapes. Despite the SPSS data analysis conducted to verify the positive correlation between satisfaction and revisit intention, they ignored the optimization strategies of landscape as the carrier of tourism, which thus affects the applicability of this research. Additionally, in China, there are few papers that quantitatively present tourists’ landscape demands and support planning strategies, with most research focusing on the subjective discussions of tourism landscape planning strategies from the perspective of the supply side. In conclusion, it remains imperative to conduct further research on the strategies of optimizing the design of rural tourism landscapes based on a complete demonstration of the influence paths of landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention, with the results of quantitative data analysis as guidance.

Research hypotheses

Landscape perception theory has been widely applied in tourism-related research and has gradually permeated into the research on rural tourism landscapes (Yang et al., 2022 ; Fan, 2020 ). The rural tourism landscape studied in this article, perceived as a physical environment, usually includes rural ecological landscapes, authentic historical and cultural landscapes, agricultural leisure and entertainment facilities, and experiential red revolutionary landscapes, and it also involves diachronic overall tourism routes.

Some scholars have explored the rationality of the path mechanism of the landscape perception–satisfaction–revisit intention in related studies, and they used the relevant results as a strategic basis for optimizing the development of rural tourism. For example, Acharya et al. ( 2023 ) showed that the better the tourism ecological environment is, the higher the satisfaction and revisit intention of tourists are, and the path from the ecological environment to the revisit intention of tourists needs to be connected by satisfaction. Geng et al. ( 2010 ) analyzed and demonstrated the positive impact of rural natural landscape satisfaction and sightseeing route satisfaction on tourists’ revisit intention using logistic model analysis. Queiroz ( 2017 ) found that cultural experiences can better reflect the authenticity of rural areas, and tourist satisfaction can be improved through the enhancement of cultural facilities, thereby promoting tourists’ willingness to revisit. Yang et al. ( 2022 ) believe that developing recreational activities with rural characteristics can stimulate tourists’ interest and participation, thereby enhancing their satisfaction and willingness to return. Zhou et al. ( 2016 ) posited that recreational facilities and entertainment activities are both important factors that attract tourists to choose rural tourism; in addition, a higher attractiveness of the tourism landscape increases the satisfaction of tourists, creating a greater impact on revisit intention.

Some scholars have further proposed and demonstrated that satisfaction plays a mediating role in the impact path of tourists’ landscape perception on their revisit intention. For example, Kim et al. ( 2013 ) conducted a survey in rural areas and found that satisfaction plays an intermediary role between tourists’ rural image perception and tourists’ revisit intention.Tu et al. ( 2017 )proposed that the internal mechanism of tourists’ behavioral intentions based on destination image perception may be achieved through the mediating effect of positive emotions such as satisfaction. Meng ( 2018 ) argued that in rural tourism, rural landscapes, and related service facilities are important manifestations of rurality, which affect tourists’ satisfaction with their travel experience and indirectly affect their revisit intention.

In summary, this study took Nangou Village as a research sample to explore the influence mechanism between rural tourism landscape perception and its associated satisfaction and revisit intention, and the following hypotheses were made (Fig. 2 ).

The figure presents the hypothesized relationship between the three variables.

Hypothesis 1 (H1) . Rural tourism landscape perception will positively affect the overall satisfaction of rural tourism.

Hypothesis 2 (H2) . Rural tourism landscape perception will positively affect the rural tourism revisit intention.

Hypothesis 3 (H3) . Rural tourism satisfaction will positively affect the rural tourism revisit intention.

Hypothesis 4 (H4) . Satisfaction will act as a mediator in the relationship between rural tourism landscape perception and revisit intention.

Study design

Nangou Village, the research object of this study, is located in Gaoqiao Town, Ansai District, Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, China, covering approximately 1716 hectares with seven natural villages under its jurisdiction, which are typical loess hilly villages (Fig. 3 ). As a key model village for rural revitalization, Nangou Village has a good natural ecological foundation and abundant agricultural and regional culture resources and has achieved preliminary linkages between the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. In the first rural tourism development, Nangou Village built the Nangou Paradise for sightseeing and its supporting facilities, the Nangou Soil and Water Conservation Demonstration Park of Ansai District of Yan’an City, and the Agricultural Picking Experience Park, the red military camps based on Yan’an Red Culture, and various characteristic landscape pieces under the influence of Ansai’s unique regional culture, which form a comprehensive cultural tourism village. With the deepening of rural revitalization in China, Nangou Village will serve as a key area for the Ansai District to build a five-billion-level cultural tourism industry cluster, further expanding and upgrading the existing tourism landscape facilities. Therefore, this article aims to propose a scientific strategy for the upgrading and transformation of Nangou Village through subjective evaluation methods.

The figure presents the geographic location of the Nangou village.

Evaluation index construction

Based on the analysis and organization of the existing literature and the construction of the theoretical framework mentioned earlier, this study constructed evaluation indicators for three variables: landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention (Table 1 ).

LP—The research on rural tourism landscape perception is not yet perfect; this study tentatively divided the LP scale into five dimensions on the basis of previous research and combined with a review of the literature. Among them, the Natural Ecology sub-dimension involves the evaluation of the rural landscape’s pastoral characteristics, the quality of the ecological environment, and the integration of landscape facilities and natural ecology (Xie et al., 2002 ; Marianna et al., 2023 ). The Historical Culture sub-dimension involves the evaluation of the regional history and culture of the rural tourism landscapes, the recognizability of the cultural symbols, and the authenticity of the cultural preservation (Huang et al., 2015 ). The Leisure Recreation sub-dimension involves the evaluation of the suitability, attractiveness, and abundance of recreational facilities in rural tourism landscapes (Yuan, 2017 ). The Research Experience sub-dimension involves the evaluation of the attractiveness, abundance, brand value, and impressiveness of the research experiences for tourists (Fan and Liu, 2016 ; Wang and Wang, 2010 ; Huang et al., 2018 ). The Integral Route sub-dimension involves the evaluation of the prominent theme features in the routes, an abundance of scenarios and experiences, and the attractiveness of the integral route (Li, 2003 ; Yan, 2021 ).

SA—This is the evaluation of whether the overall quality and experience of the rural tourism landscapes meet expectations. Here, the overall satisfaction, expectation, and competitiveness of rural tourism landscape quality and experience are used as the evaluation indexes (Chen, 2012 ; Wang et al., 2005 ).

RI—This is the evaluation of tourists’ loyalty to rural tourism destinations, with loyalty, willingness to revisit, and recommendation behavior as the evaluation indexes (Wang et al., 2006 ; Stylos et al., 2015 ).

Questionnaire design and collection

The questionnaire was designed in four parts. The first part covers the demographic characteristics, including gender, age, education level, and occupation. The second part is the evaluation of cultural image perception, while the third part is the evaluation of environmental design, and the fourth part is the evaluation of place perception. The items in these last three parts corresponded to the evaluation indexes shown in Tables 2 – 4 , respectively, and a 5-point Likert scale was used to rank the perception level.

In November 2022, the study conducted a field survey in Nangou village, complemented by an online questionnaire from November 15, 2022, through September 12, 2023. The introduction section of the questionnaire included the research objectives, the anticipated societal benefits, and the scope of information that would be collected. Before proceeding, participants were asked to review this introduction; their agreement to participate was taken as informed consent. In total, the study received 344 valid responses, serving as the sample data. The sample size satisfies the requirements for structural equation modeling that a desirable sample size should be over 200, with at least ten responses correlating to each variable under observation (Barrett, 2007 ).

Quantitative analysis methods

The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 27.0) and AMOS 27.0. Frequency analysis of the demographic characteristics and reliability analysis were conducted.

In this study, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used as the core method, and the three concepts of landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention were set as latent variables, and SEM was utilized to verify the hypotheses on the relationship between the three aspects. First, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was introduced to test whether the relationship between the factors and the corresponding measurement items was as expected, and to further revise the relationship model between the latent variables and the indicator question items and between the indicator question items (Li and Chen, 2010 ). Second, the interaction mechanism between the latent variables was analyzed by SEM to verify or falsify the research hypotheses (Gu et al., 2022 ). Finally, the bootstrap method was used to validate and analyze the indirect effects (Wen and Ye, 2014 ).

Results analysis

Demographic variables and statistical results of travel characteristics.

Using SPSS software to analyze the demographic characteristics of the 354 questionnaires, the sample was found to be well-balanced in terms of gender. The age distribution was broad and predominantly consisted of young and middle-aged people. The occupational status covered various fields, while most respondents had received middle and higher levels of education. The middle-income group accounted for a larger proportion of the sample, which is a good representation of the population (Fig. 4 ).

The figure presents the statistical results of the demographic variables for the 354 questionnaires.

The survey results showed that tourists preferred to choose research experience and historical culture landscape projects at the destination, followed by natural ecology and leisure recreation. In terms of tour length and size, tourists who chose one-day and two-person tours accounted for most of the tourists, and very few tourists chose multiday tours. The majority of tourists who came to this destination came as a unit, and the least frequent response was as individual tourists. The majority of tourists visited this village for the first time, and the number of tourists choosing to revisit the place again was very few (Fig. 5 ).

The figure presents the statistical results of the travel characteristics for the 354 questionnaires.

Reliability analysis results

In this study, the latent variables were tested using Cronbach’s α (Table 2 ), which showed that the Cronbach’s α values of landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention were 0.898, 0.803, and 0.845, respectively, and the scales’ overall Cronbach’s α value was 0.913. The Cronbach’s α values of the sub-dimensions under landscape perception ranged from 0.805 to 0.863, which are all greater than 0.8. In summary, the reliability test coefficients of each sub-dimension scale exceed 0.7, which indicates that the internal consistency of the data was good (Eisinga et al., 2013 ).

Latent variable evaluation results

As shown in Fig. 6 , the overall average landscape perception score was 3.748, which is close to a good level. Comparing the average evaluation score, the five latent variables can be ranked as NE > HC > RE > LR > IR, with scores of 3.976, 3.906, 3.889, 3.836, and 3.826, respectively. The overall average score for satisfaction was 3.625, between average and satisfactory. The overall average score for revisit intention was 3.452, between average and willing, but not reaching the desired level.

The figure presents the statistical results of the latent variable average scores. NE Natural Ecology, HC Historical Culture, LR Leisure Recreation, RE Research Experience, IR Integral Route, LP Landscape Perception, SA Satisfaction, RI Revisit Intention.

This study examined the relationship between the latent and observed variables in the measurement model through CFA to determine the reasonableness of the scale construction by convergent and discriminant validity. For convergent validity, there are usually three discriminating criteria: (1) standardized factor loadings are all greater than 0.5 (Bailey and Ball, 2006 ); (2) average variance extracted (AVE) is greater than 0.5 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988 ); and (3) composite reliability (CR) is greater than 0.7 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ). Satisfying the above criteria indicates good convergent validity. As shown in Table 3 , the standardized factor loading ranged from 0.686 to 0.891, which meets the criterion of greater than 0.5. The minimum value of CR was greater than 0.8, which is greater than the threshold value of 0.7, and the AVEs were all greater than 0.5, which indicates that the scale has a good convergent validity.

For discriminant validity, if the correlation coefficients between a factor and the other factors are all less than the square root of its AVE value, it indicates good discriminant validity between the factors (Hair et al., 2010 ). As shown in Table 4 , the correlation coefficients between landscape perception and the two factors of its sub-dimension are only slightly larger than the square root of the AVE, and the square root of the AVE values of the rest of the factors is higher than the correlation coefficients between the factor and the other factors, which indicates that the present scale has good discriminant validity.

Theoretical model validation

Under the premise of ensuring the reliability and validity of the measurement model, structural modeling was further performed to verify the hypothesized relationships among the three variables of landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention. First, the results of model fit showed that CMID/DF = 1.097, GFI = 0.949, AGFI = 0.936, CFI = 0.995, TLI (NNFI) = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.017, and SRMR = 0.037 (Table 5 ), and all the indexes were in line with the standard, which indicated that the model had a good fit (Hayduk, 1987 ; Scott and Willits, 1994 ).

This study further used AMOS 27 to establish a structural model and measure the causal relationships between the three latent variables, LP, SA, and RI. As shown in Table 6 and Fig. 7 , (1) Landscape perception has a positive and significant effect on Satisfaction, with a path coefficient of 0.559 ( P  < 0.001); (2) Landscape perception has a positive and significant effect on Revisit Intention, with a path coefficient of 0.434 ( P  < 0.001); and (3) Landscape Satisfaction had a positive and significant effect on Revisit Intention, with a path coefficient of 0.377 ( P  < 0.001) (Cabrera-Nguyen, 2010 ). This proves that hypotheses H1, H2, and H3 are supported.

NE Natural Ecology, HC Historical Culture, LR Leisure Recreation, RE Research Experience, IR Integral Route, LP Landscape Perception, SA Satisfaction, RI Revisit Intention.

Mediation analysis of satisfaction

This study adopted the bootstrap method suggested by McKinnom to test the possible mediating effect of SA in the relationship between LP and RI, and the bootstrap sample size was set at 5000 (MacKinnon et al., 2002 ). Usually, if the bootstrap confidence interval does not contain 0, then the corresponding indirect, direct, or total effect exists (MacKinnon et al., 2004 ). The test results show that at a 95% confidence level, the confidence interval of indirect effect was [0.141, 0.314], the confidence interval of direct effect was [0.456, 0.755], and the confidence interval of total effect was [0.682, 0.961], which all exclude 0, indicating that the indirect effect exists, and the ratio of the indirect effect was 0.27. The results of the mediation test support hypothesis H4 (Table 7 ).

Discussion and recommendations

Coupling relationship among lp, sa, and ri.

This study established a hypothesis model based on the a priori theory of the influencing relationship between Landscape Perception→Satisfaction→Revisit Intention, and explored and confirmed the influence paths of LP on SA and RI with Nangou Village as the research object. In the SEM results, the coefficient of LP’s influence path on SA was 0.559, and the coefficient of LP’s influence path on RI was 0.434. LP influences tourists’ revisit intention to the destination through the overall satisfaction of the tourist landscapes, which confirms that the landscape quality and experience of the destination is an important influencing factor that affects tourists’ satisfaction, which then enhances tourists’ revisit intention. This result is consistent with that of many previous studies, such as those conducted by Cao ( 2019 ) and Li ( 2022 ), in which quantitative analysis is conducted under different contexts to investigate the influence paths of landscape perception. Their research also confirms that tourists’ perception of the landscape contributes to enhancing satisfaction and revisiting intention. At present, the intention to revisit Nangou Village has not reached the desired level. Based on the LP → SA → RI influence path, this study concludes that it is necessary to upgrade the tourism landscapes as a whole in the new round of rural tourism planning, to effectively improve the attractiveness of the destination from the environmental level.

Coupling relationship among LP and its sub-variables

Different from previous studies, we defined LP as a second-order variable containing five sub-dimensions: natural ecology, historical culture, leisure recreation, research experience, and integral route. The fitted data showed that the five sub-variables were an accurate representation of the LP structure. In the results of the structural equation, all five latent variables involved in the LP dimension showed significant positive correlations with LP ( P  < 0.01), and the influence path was IR > HC > LR > NE > RE. In the correlation analysis, IR, HC, LR, RE, and IR also showed significant positive correlations with revisit intention, with correlation coefficients in the order of NE > IR > HC > LR > RE (Table S1 ), and the correlation coefficients in the order of IR > LR > LR > RE (Table 2 ). All of these results emphasize the important influence of historical culture and integral route on landscape perception and revisit intention. In the actual evaluation of landscape perception, the evaluation results of the five sub-dimensions did not reach a satisfactory level; therefore, in order to further increase the revisit intention of the destination, it is necessary to upgrade the landscapes of Nangou Village in all dimensions as a whole, and in particular, it should focus on upgrading the historical culture, the integral routes, as well as the facilities of the research experience that tourists are more inclined to choose.

Recommendations

Deeply excavating rural historical and cultural resources.

Rural tourism itself is a large-scale cultural exchange; any tourism product or tourism mode has its own cultural connotation, which is a necessary condition to attract tourism (Li and Wang, 1999 ). Rural culture is both productive and fragile; therefore, cultural protection and inheritance in rural tourism development is essential. Emphasizing the characteristic regional culture can not only improve the visibility, dissemination, and attractiveness of rural tourism destinations, but also enhance the vitality, efficiency, and effectiveness of rural development. The rural landscapes are both the end product of rural tourism and the carrier of rural culture. Based on the principle of protecting the authenticity of rural culture, integrating the elements of native culture into the tourism landscape designs of traditional villages and optimizing the tourism content is conducive to strengthening the attractiveness of traditional villages to tourists (Sun and Zhang, 2020 ). The results of the survey on the preference of tourism types in Nangou Village show that the historical culture and landscapes are popular aspects. Meanwhile, the SEM model results show that historical culture is an important factor influencing tourists’ revisit intention. Therefore, future tourism planning in Nangou Village should strengthen the development of vernacular cultural landscapes and highlight its own distinct characteristics. The tourism landscapes developed in the first round in Nangou Village have problems such as low cultural taste and inconspicuous characteristics. The new tourism planning for Nangou Village should sufficiently mobilize the regional cultural resources of the Ansai District, utilizing the region’s primitive village landscapes and folk cultural resources to create a rich “composite vernacular complex” type of landscape facilities. For example, we could introduce traditional activities such as horse riding, cattle riding, and Paper Cuttings with Ansai characteristics to the local culture experience hall; renovate cave dwelling homestays with distinctive Shaanxi characteristics; and integrate agricultural and folk activities such as tasting farmhouse meals and picking agricultural products into the homestay experience. In summary, the new tourism landscape should showcase the inherent qualities of Nangou Village, such as locality, authenticity, and humanity, from four aspects: food, housing, transportation, and work.

Shaping the National Red Culture Brand

Red cultural resources, as the Chinese excellent culture refined during the revolutionary era, play a prominent role in enhancing national self-confidence and building a strong nation. Meanwhile, the red tourism industry, which inherits and carries forward the red culture, has also become a unique path in China’s rural revitalization (Liu, 2020 ). The purpose of rural red tourism is to jointly develop traditional green ecological resources and red resources with humanistic characteristics. Through the development model of red and green integration, we can carry forward the narrative and dissemination power of the red spirit concept. At the same time, based on the comprehensive development of red tourism routes, sites, events, symbols, and other resources, we can enhance the popularity of rural tourism brands, expand market entities, and attract more visitors (Hong, 2021 ). Nangou Village is located in the red Yan’an revolutionary hometown, which occupies a place in China’s revolutionary history. In the first round of development, Nangou Village built red culture experience facilities, mainly serving units with red education and training needs in the surrounding areas. However, Nangou Village has insufficient scheduling of classic resources such as red sites, red stories, red history, and red characters, and has not established a more competitive and penetrating red tourism culture brand that serves a comprehensive audience. Therefore, we suggest that Nangou Village expand the scale of red travel facilities, create multi-dimensional red tourism experience scenarios, enhance the cultural connotation of red tourism scenic spots, and create educational and training routes with prominent themes of the red spirit. In addition, rural culture, red tourism resources, and natural ecological resources should be integrated under specific local conditions, for example, temperature-controlled greenhouses, characteristic agricultural planting, folk culture experiences, and other projects around the red tourism areas can be incorporated. This is conducive to enhancing the “red tourism integration” brand effect for its greater influence on surrounding facilities. Therefore, the connection between the cultural dimension and tourists’ perception of landscapes can be reinforced. In turn, it enhances the favorability and visibility of the “Red Yan’an” brand, which gives full play to its economic potential while promoting the inheritance of red cultural genes.

Creating rural tourism boutique routes

Rural tourism boutique routes are an arrangement and scientific organization of characteristic tourism landscapes, which is an important strategy for rural tourism destinations to attract tourists. The creation of boutique tourism routes is based on the integration of regional resources, forming a “string of points into a line, with a line leading to the surface, the overall promotion” of the joint development of the countryside, which is able to better utilize and display rural resources, and promote the integrated development of industries and the cultivation of new business models (You, 2014 ; Wang, 2015 ). According to the SEM results, it can be seen that the integral route sub-dimension of Nangou Village had the greatest impact on landscape perception. However, at present, tourists gave the lowest rating for aspect, which affected their satisfaction and led to a low willingness to revisit. At present, the tourism landscape projects in Nangou Village have problems, such as dispersion, small scales, individual operations, a single rural tourism product, and imperfect industrial and economic structures. Therefore, the upgrading strategy should incorporate the cultural theme of “Ansai Five Business Cards” into the integral tourism routes, and form the regional tourism development routes, rural tourism routes, and red knowledge education and training routes in the Greater Nangou area, which rely on the characteristic resources of Nangou Village. Moreover, it should connect the regional construction with the routes, and form a diversified tourism industry integrating “agricultural science popularization + folklore experience + parent-child amusement + leisure agriculture”. Finally, the tourism route planning should make full use of the Nangou Village brand, taking rural culture and tourism as the engine to optimize and expand primary industries, achieve coordinated development of the village and urban economy, and focus on the development of tertiary industries, in order to cooperate with the new rural industrial development system in Nangou Village.

Conclusions

With the gradual evolution of urbanization and the extensive promotion of China’s Rural Revitalization Strategy, rural tourism has become more and more popular and has developed rapidly. Landscape perception is the process of human interactions with the landscape, and the positive or negative results of this perception will directly affect the satisfaction of the tourists with the destination, thus affecting the tourists’ revisit intention. This study was based on the theory of landscape perception, and selected Nangou Village as the research object, on the basis of validating the influencing relationship of Landscape Perception→Satisfaction→Revisit Intention, to put forward reasonable suggestions for the optimization and upgrading of Nangou Village. The results of the research show the following: (1) Tourists’ landscape perception significantly influences tourists’ satisfaction and revisit intention. (2) Tourists’ satisfaction with the destination plays an intermediary role in the influence of landscape perception on revisit intention. (3) Landscape perception contains five dimensions (natural ecology, historical culture, leisure recreation, research experience, and integral route), all of which significantly influence tourists’ satisfaction and revisit intention. Among these dimensions, historical culture and integral route have the greatest influence, which indicates that the cultural and integral nature of the landscape is the core element that drives tourists to generate positive emotions. (4) Tourists prefer landscape projects with historical culture and research experience. (5) The overall landscape planning of Nangou Village was not evaluated highly, and it needs to be upgraded in a focused way. Using the empirical results as a reference, this study proposes strategies for upgrading the tourism landscapes of Nangou Village: deeply excavate rural historical and cultural resources, shape the national red culture brand, and create rural tourism boutique routes. Therefore, exploring the factors affecting revisit intention and thinking about the construction of rural tourism landscape perception elements can provide theoretical guidance for solving the next stage of rural tourism planning in Nangou Village and providing a direction for the construction of beautiful villages in the future.

The methodology of empirical research as applied in this study, along with the corresponding data analysis conducted in the case study of Nangou Village, aims to reveal the influencing factors for revisit intention. By adopting a reverse-thinking approach to constructing the elements of rural tourism landscape perception, theoretical guidance is provided for the next phase of rural tourism planning in Nangou Village. Meanwhile, it gains the strategic insights crucial for local governments and collaborative planning agencies to develop, manage, and market rural tourism destinations. Additionally, the research methods used in this study provide a reference for relevant government and planning agencies to carry out rural tourism planning. Firstly, rural tourism relies heavily on tourism landscape facilities as its primary support system. Therefore, rural tourism is supposed to focus on increasing the attention paid to tourists’ demands from the perspective of the supply side. This can be achieved by constructing landscape perception scales that are more tailored to the advantages and characteristics of tourism destinations. Through the surveys of rural tourism landscape perception elements based on combined scale analysis, tourists’ expectations and demands can be better satisfied. Thus, their satisfaction and revisit intention can be enhanced. Secondly, in the practice of rural tourism marketing, the SEM (structural equation modeling) quantitative results of landscape perception, satisfaction, and revisit intention can be referenced to guide targeted promotion and advertising efforts for landscape elements perceived more strongly by tourists. In this way, the attractiveness to tourist groups can be improved. Lastly, planning agencies can apply the scale developed in this study to measure the satisfaction level of rural tourism industries in tourists’ minds at various stages. By assessing the scores in different dimensions, planning agencies can better identify their strengths and weaknesses, which enables them to maintain their advantages while making improvement.

Some limitations should be noted, which need to be addressed in the future. Firstly, the division of landscape perception dimensions in this study was somewhat subjective and innovative, and there are some immaturity issues. Secondly, the data collection time was short, which may not represent the average situation throughout the year. Finally, this article intended to propose optimization suggestions for Nangou Village at the landscape level, but this should be integrated with the industrial transformation, planning and propaganda, and enhancing service quality and other influencing factors of tourism destinations in the overall tourism planning.

Data availability

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material ( S2 . Dataset), further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Academy of Agricultural Planning and Engineering, MARD of China “Study on the transformation of rural space and planning response in the suburbs of Xi'an from the perspective of social change”, grant number XC2X2DKT-20230916 and by the Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Project of China “Study on Reshaping the Spatial Value of Cultural Memory of Industrial Heritage and the Path of Local Identity”, grant number 2022JM-289.

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Kou, Y., Xue, X. The influence of rural tourism landscape perception on tourists’ revisit intentions—a case study in Nangou village, China. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 620 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03129-8

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