Evaluating and translating cultural symbol design
An AHP-Topsis evaluation framework based on the Chaoshan five-element Gable Walls
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17832155 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yousheng Yao (Macau University of Science and Technology), Junpeng Zheng (Health Promotion Agency), Fangtian Ying (0000-0001-9047-0257, Macau University of Science and Technology), Yang Rao (0000-0002-5235-6901, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering), Junqi Zhan (Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, corresponding author), Xiayu Liu (Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering), Jiao Jiang (0000-0002-0528-3260, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering), Yingrui Li (0000-0001-6630-1277, Health Promotion Agency), Shihua Quan (Health Promotion Agency) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-03 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2662-9992 • E-ISSN: 2662-9992 |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41599-026-07116-z |
| OpenAlex | W7148651467 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
Translating culturally saturated ornament into contemporary design often collapses meaning into surface resemblance and lacks auditable methods that generalize across diverse scenarios (e.g., product and public-information settings). Focusing on the Chaoshan Five-Element gable, this study models heritage semantics as an evaluative system and tests how such semantics guide concrete design choices. It operationalizes a transparent, reproducible decision framework that integrates kansei structuring, AHP weighting with internal consistency control, TOPSIS ranking, and robustness analyses, with portability demonstrated via contextual reweighting for wayfinding. Expert judgments from a 16-member panel exhibit acceptable logical consistency (CR = 0.06) and substantial agreement (Kendall’s W = 0.79), while a user survey (n = 300) supports scale reliability and content validity (I-CVI = 0.83–1.00; S-CVI/Ave = 0.91). In the primary application to two tea-set designs, TOPSIS closeness favors Teaware A over Teaware B (Ci = 0.676 vs. 0.642). For historical-district wayfinding, criteria are reweighted to emphasize legibility, visibility, and universal comprehension; the concept-level strategies rank S2 Anchor markers (0.664) > S3 Color coding (0.641) > S1 Decorative border (0.603) > S4 Modern baseline (0.521). Across ±5/10% weight perturbations and leave-one-out checks on experts and criteria, rank concordance remains high (Spearman ρ ≈ 0.90–0.95), indicating stable preferences. Beyond these cases, the framework is potentially transferable: the criterion skeleton and contextual reweighting logic can be reused, but cross-site validation is required before claiming broader generalizability across cultural settings
Gable · Cultural and Communication Design Research · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Urban Design and Spatial Analysis
| Highly cited | No |
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