A Comparative Research on Designer and Customer Emotional Preference Models of New Product Development

The intelligent electric bicycle, as a means of transportation, is characterized by low pollution, low noise and energy saving. Hence, how to actively research, develop and promote electric bicycle is an important topic. Meanwhile, as consumer groups vary in psychology and behavior, they show differences in functional preference of smart electric bicycle, how to understand and identify the differences between designers and users in electric bicycle preference, and then to reduce the uncertainties of electric bicycle manufacturers on the market becomes an imperative topic which is of great significance. In order to analyze the emotional preference differences between designers and users in terms of electric bicycle in the qualitative and quantitative manner, this study conducts the kansei evaluation of designers’ and users’ visual and emotional feelings for electric bicycle products. The emotional preference model adopts semantic differential to carry out quantitative analysis of surveyed designers and users. In order to standardize the cognitive description related to product shape style, the abstract psychological perception of cognitive subjects for physical shape characteristics is extracted from customers’ natural language. Then, the key emotional vocabulary can be extracted via factor analysis and focus group. The experiment outcome contains 3 typical emotional words which are combined with their antonyms to form 3 adjective clusters. The sample mean statistics approach is employed to calculate the average value of subjects’ scores for the cognitive adjectives regarding the sample style. To compare the differences between designers and customers in preference for electric bicycle products, this study uses two statistical research methods, that is, T-test and the correlation analysis. The experiment results could explain that users and designers demonstrate obvious statistical differences in two kansei words. Furthermore, as a result, the product design form for which the emotional image of designers highly matches with users’ emotional image is concluded and comes up with the product form that reflects strong correlation between users’ emotional demand and experts’ emotional cognition. Accordingly, a new and effective theoretical framework is provided for the development of electric bicycle products. This research results of this experiment could not only help designers understand customers’ views but also significantly increase the efficiency of interaction and communication between designers and users, and then to help with quick and accurate product orientation.