Keywords

1 Introduction

According to different innovative impetuses, Dosi puts forward two opposite innovative methods: market demand innovation and technology push innovation [1]. Market demand innovation considers the new product development activity as the reflection of clear client demand. In market demand innovation, market is the core resource of innovation; in technology push innovation, the usability of new technology is the pusher. In technology push innovation, innovation is the R&D behavior of enterprises and enterprises develop new products through new technology.

In the traditional product development, enterprises attach great importance to the function, efficiency and style of products. As the world of man-made materials becomes more and more colorful, the pursuance of humans to products isn’t limited to product function and style any more. The emotional value and symbolic value (product meaning) shown by color, line, material and architectural appearance can meet the deep demands of users. The development of new products also notices that the product with the user value and meaning has bigger advantage than other products under the fierce market competition environment. Users not only pay attention to the practical function and style, but the product meaning too. It’s because that function meets the demand of users to use the product and product meaning pleases consumers’ emotion and social culture demand.

Verganti proposes the third innovative method: design-driven innovation. He thinks that the motivation of innovation is to understand, acquire and influence the meaning of new products [2]. Design-driven innovation is a breakthrough innovation in product language and meaning. Technology push is a breakthrough innovation in technological function. Market demand innovation is the incremental innovation of technological function and product language. For these innovation methods and strategies, market demand innovation is the innovation with consumers as the center (including users which have special meaning of consumers) and it’s an incremental innovation. Technological push innovation focuses on the improvement of product function and property and no product language appears. However, the design-driven innovation or language-driven innovation creates new product language, then designers can provide the breakthrough products.

Since the design philosophy of taking humans as the center has been widely recognized in the field of new product development, the researchers, designers and engineers of product design many technologies and methods to help the research on human factors [3] in order to build a more complete product stricture to meet users’ physiological, cognitive, social, cultural and emotional demand, wish and preference and to achieve good user experience [4]. Then it can realize the sustainable development of product, brand and even enterprises. Product appearance activity is an important process to reflect the expected user experience to visual and touchable product.

At present, the philosophy that “product design is actually the design of user experience has become a consensus of companies and organizations at the leading edge of product and service design innovation. On this basis, how to understand the formation of user experience, how to change the user understanding into design specification and standard, how to evaluate the product concept and scheme with the principle of user experience have become the research topics in recent years.

Usually the success rate of product innovation in enterprises is low and 46 % of new product development will fail. The research shows that 60 % of the faults lies in the design and further statistical data also shows that these 60 % of faults result from demand and analysis activity, which means it’s caused by the faults of early stage of innovation. The input and quality to (market and user value) demand analysis in the Fuzzy Front End of new product development determines the success of the final product [5].

The product development and design process based on the philosophy focuses on the exploration and analysis of user experience. It builds product structure according to it. Every periodic decision in the whole design process introduces the design quality evaluation of user experience factors of periodic results by all means. Then many new methods have taken shape, such as participating design or co-creation design. As the product classes are different and different understandings of the design team to user experience may affect the final quality of the experience design, the costs of changing the design is high when problems appear after making the design evaluation as the completion of product structure and design. So the earlier the user experience evaluation is, the better the design quality can be guaranteed and the higher the cost-effectiveness is.

Although the design philosophy of UCD has proved its meaning by many design projects, the knowledge obtained from user research still needs designers to make design conversion. Some cases have shown that although we have obtained some valuable design knowledge in the Fuzzy Front End, we can’t guarantee the success of the final product. Some research results show that designers design products with the precondition of enterprise profit and it’s the compromise and balance of the connected factors such as technology, economic value and business enterprise; the users’ understanding and experience of products are based on the realization of user value. It’s the balance of product function, the relation with related system, products and the usage on the user meaning (Fig. 1) [6]. As the objectives and influence factors are different, the encoding information in the process of design in the design end on the basis of design knowledge is inconsistent with the decoding information in the process of connecting and using the product in the user end, i.e. the product knowledge obtained by users are inconsistent with the product knowledge which the designers try to express through encoding. This makes it hard to realize the presupposed objective of product development. For example, it will lead to the location to appear objective offset in front of the market and product, the difference between different products in the same product line will be not clear enough, even the internal competition will appear among products. Then the effective realization of product strategy in an enterprise will be influenced, even the enterprise will suffer from loss of competitive capacity in the market as a whole.

Fig. 1.
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Design knowledge composition of design end encoding and product knowledge composition of user end decoding.

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Design encoding - the semantic expression process taking product as the physical medium to product meaning has always been considered as a black box process. There is no effective method to guarantee the high quality of encoding by some obvious mechanism at present. But by measuring the cognition of users to the design result, i.e. the spread effect of appearance to product meaning, and evaluating the match of cognition content and design location and specification is an effective method of finding the problem of design encoding and promoting the optimization of design iteration. The objective of this research is to build a method to match the index of the cognition decoding in the user end to product and the semantic information encoding to product meaning in the design end and then to provide methods and tools of the periodic design evaluation involved in the participating design process which takes users as the center.

2 Research Objective and Method

Research Objective. The research objective is to build a method to help designers evaluate the appearance design in two directions: 1- whether the property described by product location in the appearance design can deliver to consumers/users; 2- considering from the angle of product line planning, whether the appearance design can become an effective tool to differentiate the product with the other products in the product line. In addition, the methods provided by the research can be used to evaluate the quality of product line planning. It helps enterprises understand the product line/system structure based on the understanding of consumers/users and provides the basis or reference for enterprises to adjust or optimize the product strategy.

Research Method. The research adopts the participating evaluation method and uses physical projection method to obtain the subjects’ cognitive image data of users. With the help of statistical analysis method, it uses perceptual location map to show the analysis result. Finally, it forms the evaluation on the concept of new product through the overall analysis of the product system [7]. Besides, to reveal the product line structure from the angle of the product line and product system of the enterprise and check that whether the structure meets the product strategy of the enterprise and the problems provide inspiration and suggestions for the subsequent design activities and the product strategy behavior of the enterprise.

The analysis of the research data adopts the Correspondent Analysis method. Correspondent Analysis is a multiple statistical analysis technology and it helps to reveal the relationship between the variables through researching the summary table of interaction composed by qualitative variables [8]. The information of interaction table is shown in pictures. It’s mainly used for the qualitative variables with several types and it can reveal the difference of one variable among different types and the correspondence relation of different variables among different types. It’s applicable to the analysis of two or more qualitative variables. The Correspondent Analysis technology has widely used for concept development, new product development, market refining, competition analysis, advertisement research at present. It helps the researchers and designers who are engaged in product strategy research and market research to solve many problems: product user and its property, competitor, product location. The detailed data analysis is completed by SPSS (statistical analysis software).

3 Research Process

The research takes a new product development of H Company as an example to do research.

3.1 Case Review

H Company is an enterprise which develops and producing network Router as the leading products. It has many subsidiaries in the world. After the operation of more than 10 years, the company has completed the transformation from an ODM enterprise to an OBM enterprise. At the meantime, the product chain has spread from network equipment to mobile communication system such as smart phone. The research object is the wireless Router product for home use. The design activity of the design team in H Company usually bases on the new product location of the Market Research Department of the company. The design team combines the materials and data in user research to determine the design direction. There will a symbolic semantic word in the early stage of design to generalize the user cognition which the product is expected to achieve. For example, the descriptive semantic words of three products are “light and handy”, “active and strong”, and “noble and graceful”. As the generality and importance of the descriptive semantic words to design guidance, the research takes 7 products and 1 conceptual product under the stage of R&D to analyze the match relation of design location (product appearance) of products of different types in the product chain and the corresponding descriptive semantic words (for the purpose of standardization, it’s called as “semantic words of product appearance”). And with the analysis of product specification, we find the suitable direction.

3.2 Acquisition of Research Data

The following are the detailed procedures of data acquisition:

Experiment preparation. H Company provides all the products and a high fidelity concept product model for the research of the cognitive image of users. Relatively speaking, the product has more real and abundant product information, it’s easy to make subjects to have user experience. Therefore, the experiment bases on the physical projection method to adopt data using the match of physical stimulus and semantic words of product appearance. The experiment design is as following:

  1. 1-

    Choice of subjects. Limited by the research grant, the research only samples the undergraduate in College of Design of Media & Design Institute in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The research uses cluster random sampling method to classify the students by grade and sex for random sampling (Table 1). There are 86 subjects taking part in the experiment.

    Table 1. Examinee distribution of random sampling based on layer
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  2. 2-

    2–7 physical products and 1 high fidelity concept product model are put on 8 desks in random order. The desk surface is white non-reflective material in order to reduce the interference of background to the stimulus; in order to reduce experiment noise, the brand logo of H Company is removed;

3- According to the description of key words of design objective when design the product, the research acquires 8 semantic words of product appearance. Taking the basic standard of easy to recognize in normal distance, 8 semantic words of product appearance are used to make standard cards. The character is Song typeface and 3 black font. The product semantic words come from the key words of product orientation from the design stage of H Company. They are light and handy, active and strong, elegant and classic, HiTech and Fashionable, exquisite and noble, implicit and flexible, free and convenient, noble and graceful. The correspondence relation between 8 products (including a high fidelity concept product model) and 8 semantic words (Table 2):

Table 2. Correspondent relationship between product and product type and semantic word
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Experiment Process. 1- The subjects undertake the observation and free operation of 30 s to every object and then the subjects are offered 8 semantic word cards to match one pair by one pair. The researchers take photos of the matching results and record the data.

According to the consumer orientation of the product, we find 86 subjects. There are 78 effective samples through the experiment. After the Correspondence Analysis operation, we get the following perceptual location map (Fig. 2):

Fig. 2.
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Perceptual location map

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Note: in order to show the result intuitively. Figure 2 attaches the pictures of the product and the model on the basis of SPSS output result. Also two axes are added at the 0 point and there is no further change.

The analyzed data forms a contingency table of 8 × 8. The smallest dimensional is 1 and the 7th dimensional can explain 100 % of the contingency table. The first dimensional explains 59.4 % and the second 18.3 %. These two explain 77.7 % of the contingency table (Table 3). In general, the result is ideal.

Table 3. Abstract of Correspondent Evaluation
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4 Data Analysis

The following is the further analysis of the results.

Overall Observation. We can see that 8 products distributing spread in the location map and the distribution of 8 semantic words of product appearance are widely spread too. It shows that there are differences among these products (including a design scheme model) from the view of the subjects, i.e. there is product orientation difference (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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Vector analysis of perceptual location map

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To make the vector from the reference point to every product orientation point. The smaller the angle between the vectors is, the smaller the difference between the correspondent products in subjects’ user perception, which means the product similarity is bigger. Besides, the more distant of every product orientation point from the original point, the more particular and typical the product is. Otherwise, it is less characteristic and it’s harder to attract consumers’ attraction. Therefore, it’s much harder to form unique user experience. The above analysis chart shows that comparing with other products, H801, H610and H1100 are considered as more typical. The interview after the event also shows that these products leave a deep impression on the subjects. The most undistinguished product is H711. Its locating point is almost located in the original point and it will be explained in details in the later analysis.

Observe the Neighboring Area. In 8 products, H801 and H901 are close; H101and New Model (New Concept) are close; and other product relations are relatively far. As to the semantic words of product appearance, “light and handy”, “active and strong”, “HiTech and Fashionable”, “implicit and flexible” are considered as closer by subjects. This can be explained by comparing the meaning of these two groups of words.

To observe The Psychological Distance Perceived by Subjects of Semantic Words and Different Types of Products. 8 semantic words of product appearance directly come from the design department of H Company. According to the design intent, the product plan hopes that every product can deliver the user experience described by these key words to consumers. The correspondence map shows that the design objective of most products has consistent relevance with the subjects’ cognitive image of users stimulated by the stimulus. The next is to analyze the distance relation between every semantic words of product appearance and the location of every product in the subjects’ cognitive image of users. The detailed analysis method is: to draw a reference line OWi from the original point O(0,0) to every product semantic word (taking free and convenient as an example). Then to make a vertical MjQj from every product locating point to OWi, and the distance |WiQj| which is from the foot point to the current semantic word (free and convenient) is the distance from the cognitive image of users to product semantic word. It’s shown in the following chart (Fig. 4):

Fig. 4.
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Pedal analysis of perceptual location map

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The distance relation between 8 semantic words of product appearance and 8 product types is as following (Figs. 5 and 6):

Fig. 5.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Light and Handy”.

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Fig. 6.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Active and Strong”.

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Light and handy: the closest semantic words of product appearance of this product are H901 and then H801 - the original type.

Active and strong: consistent with the design objective, H901 becomes the type which is the closest one to the semantic word in the subjects’ mind (Figs. 7 and 8).

Fig. 7.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Free and Convenient”.

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Fig. 8.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Implicit and Flexible”.

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Free and convenient: under this semantic word, H101 becomes the closest type, which is consistent with the design objective. The distance between the other types is close as well and that shows that the difference isn’t huge.

Implicit and flexible: New Model is the closest one to the semantic word, and this is consistent with the design objective. The design adopts the random honeycomb support form. Its appearance is quite different from the style of all the other types. However, its color is implicit (Figs. 9 and 10).

Fig. 9.
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pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Exquisite and Noble”.

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Fig. 10.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Elegant and Classic”.

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Exquisite and noble: consistent with the design objective, H610 becomes the type which is the closest one to the semantic word in the subjects’ mind, while other types are distant from the semantic word.

Elegant and classic: being elegant and classic is the design objective of H711, but the data shows that H711 is quite distant from the semantic word. The interview finds that the subjects are antipathetic to H711 as its modeling language is considered as has intimating some competitive product, even though its overall modeling is great. As its unique design, New Model is considered by the examinees as the closest to the feeling of “elegant and classic” (Figs. 11 and 12).

Fig. 11.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “HiTech and fashionable”.

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Fig. 12.
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Pedal projection figure of the semantic word “Noble and Graceful”.

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HiTech and Fashionable: New Model is the closest one to the semantic word and this consistent with the design objective. It is closely connected with the new visual language and high technological modeling language.

Noble and graceful: consistent with the design objective, H610 becomes the type which is the closest one to the semantic word in the subjects’ mind and New Model ranks the second.

Analysis on Product Similarity Reflected by the Subjects’ Cognitive Behavior. Referring to Fig. 2, to make vectors from the original point to the points of products of 8 types, then we can get 8 vectors. Comparing in pairs, if the angel between vectors is an acute angle, then the subjects’ cognitive difference between these two products is small. The smaller the acute angle is, the smaller the difference of subjects’ cognition between these two products is. We can see from the figure that the cognitive distance between H801 and H901 is small, then we can deduce that although the appearances of these types are different, the subjects’ overall cognition reflects huge similarity. We can find from analyzing the product property that the the products’ configuration and function are similar. The main difference lies in the appearance (and size). In addition, H600 and H610 are similar too. However, besides the difference in some functional configurations, their biggest difference is that they use different surface materials and processes. According to the prediction of researchers, the cognitive distance between these two types is smaller than that between H801 and H901 and researchers think that they are the closest products. But the data shows the influence factor of appearance plays a role in differentiating the products in these two types. The psychological cognition distances of other types can be deduced from it.

Analysis of Characteristic Segregation of Product in Different Types. We can see from the figure that other types are distant from the original point except H711. It shows that the characteristics of other types (appearance, functional configuration and interaction) can be easily recognized by the subjects except H711, i.e. the characteristics of these types are obvious and the locations are clear. They can easily recognized by consumers after being placed on the market.

Analysis of Market Location and Product Refining. Referring to Fig. 1, the correspondence map shows that: the key word of the product located in the first quadrant is noble which means focusing on the high grade product; the product in the second quadrant focuses on “light” and “strong” and it can be understood as portable and good performance; that in the third quadrant focuses on function integration and it supports users to complete many tasks; that in the fourth quadrant focuses on high technology and fashion, such as the product responses quickly in operation and go along the fashionable appearance language. The internal information reflected by the correspondence map shows the consumption appeal of the subjects (or consumers of products) to these products and it’s also one of the bases for enterprises to develop products.

At the same time, the small cognitive distance between H801 and H901 shows that these two products are competitors. This is what enterprises should avoid when make the product planning.

5 Conclusion

We can easily discover from the above analysis that using the technology and procedures provided by the research can predict the consumers’/users’ cognitive image of users to the product. With the help of corresponding data exploration technology, it can help designers to evaluate the semantic spread effect of the appearance design activity under the direction of product planning and help enterprises and the design department to undertake management and quality control in every link in the whole innovative design process as early as possible. It also helps the design team to make effective segregation through appearance to the product location among different types from the consumers’ cognition characteristics at the beginning of product planning in order to achieve the integrity and complementarities of product line and reduce the huge risks brought by blind development; meanwhile, introducing the potential users of the product to take part in the concept development, plan design and decision, and prototyping can effectively guarantee the design philosophy of taking humans as the center in the whole development process until the realization of the final product.