PROPUESTA CONCEPTUAL PARA LA CONSIDERACIÓN DE LAS EMOCIONES DEL CLIENTE EN EL DISEÑO DE PRODUCTOS

Abstract

The integration of the customer’s opinion throughout the design process is not a new issue, although it has traditionally been focused on functional requirements. In today's market context, a huge number of products manufactured with mature technology compete with each other to offer differentiating characteristics. Such distinguishing elements can be achieved by focusing on the emotions that the product evokes in the customer. In many companies, the consideration of customers’ wishes is limited to some market research (prior to the development of the product) or to analysing the results of sales once the product has been released on the market, which is especially the case of SMEs with limited technologies and resources. This article proposes a conceptual framework that establishes the relations elicited in the interaction between customer and product, with the aim of obtaining a support element for the application of emotional design tools in a new product development process. The paper analyse some previous models and it also highlights a number of aspects, such as the need to distinguish among types of customers, or a detailed establishment of terms related to the interaction between customer and product (such as feeling, perception or affective response). Keywords: Customer integration in NPD, Emotional Design, Interaction between customer and product