For the competitive automotive industry to take steps towards more sustainable materials, it remains crucial that they still be perceived as high quality and in premium cars, every detail matters. Even surface characteristics such as gloss.

Materials with gloss levels that appear too shiny for low-gloss components are often perceived as cheap and plasticky, hence avoided in modern automotive interiors. However, perceived gloss does not consistently align with measurable gloss values, presenting a challenge for industrial design and material evaluation.

Therefore, this thesis investigates methods for measuring perceived gloss and its impact on perceived quality, through two exploratory experiments.

The main findings are that gloss is undeniably noticeable when assessing the perceived quality of interiors and is predominantly associated with negative aspects such as cheap or plasticky impression although not the main driver of low-quality perception.

Gloss also seems to be a somewhat elusive concept for most users, although some have very clear opinions on the matter where they tend to complain about sharp, uneven and too much gloss, instead wanting a more sober shine.

A recommendation is to implement an 85° gloss meter for measuring low-gloss surfaces as mentioned in ISO 2813:2014. Although metrics from the iGM Rhopoint Aesthetix such as Sparkle Brightness 10° and Sparkle Visibility 10° do seem to correlate better with perceived gloss than both 60° and 85° GU. However, further work is needed to confirm this.