Influence of Product Complexity and Customers Demographics on Co-Design.

Abstract

Co-design is an emerging trend in new product development that results in more active customer participation in product development than conventional design processes; it connects customers, designers, and engineers throughout product design and development. This dissertation studies the influence of product complexity, frequency of product use, and customer demographics on co-design. Three co-design surveys were conducted with an online community of customers. More than five hundred community members participated in these surveys and provided about two thousand design ideas to improve four different products. The analysis of these ideas showed that frequency of use influences the quantity of design ideas generated for that product. It was also found that product complexity (estimated by number of components and user interfaces) does not affect the novelty of design ideas generated for a product. In addition the data suggests that customers’ dissatisfaction with existing products may lead them to generate novel ideas during co-design. Results from these surveys also showed that customers’ interest in co-design varies significantly with product type. For example customers are five times more interested in co-designing a house than an inkjet printer. Gender also influences co-design. Females are more interested in co-designing clothes than males whereas males are more interested in co-designing cars than females. Age also plays a role in determining customers’ interest in co-design. Finally, a five step framework (5i model) was proposed to implement co-design. These five steps were identified after reviewing latest case studies of co-design efforts for various companies like Dell, Starbucks, and Apple. In addition, the data collected as part of this dissertation also informed the five step framework. The five steps are: invite the customers, interact with them, ideate for new products and services, implement customers’ ideas and then improve the process of co-design. Using these five steps a company can initiate co-design efforts and engage customers in product design and development. It is predicted that in coming years co-design will increasingly augment conventional design processes.