Intrinsic, Prime, and Individual Influences on Contextual Design Fluency

In three studies we show that a design’s typicality, clarity, and simplicity differentially contribute to a target’s perceived fluency, with individual design acumen moderating effects of simplicity and clarity but not typicality. When targets (products) are primed by disfluent designs (packages) target contextual fluency traces back entirely to its intrinsic design factors. Increasing the fluency of a prime, however, results in assimilation effects as consumers progressively transfer the fluency of the prime to the target. Downstream effects of contextual fluency on purchase intentions and willingness-to-pay are mediated by attractiveness. Individual need-for-cognition and cognitive load both have detrimental effects on contextual fluency. Implications focus on the advancement of research on fluency and implications for managing design.