Consumer-Driven Product Design

Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design for the success of products and brands. Consumer researchers are focused on understanding consumer responses to product design. Designers try to adjust products to consumers' needs and enhance product experience by involving consumers in the design process. The complexity of consumer responses to products has prompted both consumer and design researchers to formulate conceptual models of consumer responses to product design. This chapter will give an overview of four different perspectives that are used to describe consumer responses to product design, including the designers' perspective centered on product esthetics, the consumer perspective revolving around product experience, the semiotics perspective on symbolic product meaning, and the managerial perspective stressing consumer satisfaction as most important.