Acquisition of Product Design Guidelines Considering User Kansei Data Pertaining to Product Environments

Recently, almost all industrially manufactured consumer goods have a high level of engineering excellence, and product designers face an increasingly difficult task of creating products that will stand out in a competitive marketplace. At present, users tend to base their purchasing decisions on the product’s degree of fitness to their preferences, not the degree of functional fulfillment that the product offers. The development of products that are more attractive to users requires the consideration of human preferences and sensibilities, so-called “Kansei,” as well as the skillful application of these factors to the design sequence. The process of identifying and clarifying Kansei suggests that personal preferences concerning a given product are strongly influenced by both the person’s environment and the circumstances in which the product will be used. Analyzing both of these clarifies the influence that subconscious desires and human nature have on the expression of Kansei. This paper proposes a method for extracting the Kansei of potential customers and applying it to product designs that aim to maximize their human appeal, rather than their technical superiority.