Satisfying consumers' needs through systematic empathic design model

Abstract

Customer-oriented customized design has become the key success factor in the process of product development. However, designers are typically unable to identify the actual demands of consumers to conduct customized designs because of numerous limitations. These limitations include consumers' lack of expressive abilities to clearly highlight their demands and designers' lack of measures and methods to effectively integrate consumer opinions. Thus, based on the proposed systematic empathic design model, the primary purpose of this study is to identify consumer demands. These demands can be identified by initially conducting participant observations to describe phenomena and applying the laddering method to obtain information. Then, the implication matrix was employed to facilitate analysis and the hierarchical value map was used to ensure the formulation and setting of the guidelines for demand. Finally, mind mapping was used to develop conceptual prototypes of the products. Through this combined process, customer satisfaction is achieved. This study contributes to the design industry by providing designers with a closely coordinated and clearly visible set of procedures for the initial stages of design process. This study endeavors to effectively satisfy the implicit demands of consumers and develop prototypes of customized products. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.