Eliciting user requirements and acceptance for customizing mobile device system architecture

Abstract

Mass customization is a popular approach in product design and manufacturing, where customers can configure standard products according to their individual preferences. Applied to the technical customization of mobile device system architecture (e.g. smartphones), an empirical multi-method approach was applied in order to elicit user requirements and acceptance. First, in a text mining analysis with n=80.995 blog comments relevant components and properties of cell phones were identified. Second, an online-survey with n=48 participants was conducted, which quantified user requirements and acceptance of the customization approach. The consecutive combination of text mining and survey provided valuable insights into user perceptions and acceptance. Customization was perceived positively, although the willingness to pay was low. Customizable technical characteristics in mobile device system design such as battery life, speech quality, memory capacity and connection quality as well as user profiles were identified. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.