Towards a platform for New Concept Development: when kansei and design-thinking approaches meet

This paper, part of a PhD research, focuses on ways to improve new concept development (NCD) activities. This research is done in collaboration with the Kansei Design (KD) division of Toyota Motor Europe (TME), a team composed of designers and engineers bringing a particular dynamism to research and development activities. The paper presents a new platform for NCD aiming to assist the flow of ideas for the creation of user experience. It integrates kansei methodologies as well as more classical design-thinking approaches and uses as basis the analysis of 13 past NCD projects. The kansei approach to design pays particular attention to the different senses involved in the user experience as well as values, emotions and symbols perceived and felt. Kansei-based tools have a large scope. They can be used to provide design-guidelines but also at the creation and evaluation phases. They have also revealed themselves complementary to other approaches and in that way improve the quantity and quality of NCD methods available. These synergies are particularly useful in a context of user experience creation including concepts (function, sensory attributes, values, emotions) and also design strategies.