Remote assessment of intangible product experiences: A means to assist product development

Abstract: There is a need from industry to better understand how customers perceive products. To develop products without understanding subjective perceptions and experiences is to risk that products with low customer value are devel-oped. As a consequence product target groups may be missed and intended market success may not occur. Traditional approaches for capturing subjective customer experiences are not sufficiently adapted and efficient. The aim of this research is to develop a new approach for remote assessment of visual and intangible product experiences that can assist the product design process where little current support is available. The comprehensive research question has been what characteristics may be favourable for capturing visual and intangible product experiences remotely. A software tool has been developed as part of the re-search in an attempt to facilitate the elicitation of subjective product experiences. The objective of the tool has been to imitate the visual and lucid characteristics of the real life assessment situation. The tool has been tested and evaluated in an iterative process. Remote and situated respondents have assessed the emerging tool and have found the approach attractive, intuitive and suitable for expressing their subjective product experiences towards visual representations of products. The value of this thesis lies in a better understanding of how customers perceive subjective product values. The implications concerns academia, industry as well as con-sumers.