This dissertation seeks to advance our understanding of how marketing principles can be used to improve the process of new product design. Specifically, it examines the potential of a specific cognitive process, visual mental imagery, as a tool to help designers maximize the appeal of new products in the eyes of their customers. A conceptual framework is presented that describes a process through which visual mental imagery might influence the customer appeal of a design output. This is followed by two experiments which test the hypotheses that flow from this model. The experiments manipulate both the type of visual imagery utilized, and the incorporation of the customer in the imagery invoked (content of the imagery), in order to examine their effects on the usefulness, originality, and customer appeal of the resulting design. Consistent with the proposed framework and its hypotheses, visualization of the customer, as part of the imagery process, proved to enhance design usefulness when this imagery was imagination-based, but not when it was memory-based. Furthermore, use of imagination-based imagery resulted in more original designs than pure memory-based imagery. Finally, and most importantly, the use of customer visualization in combination with imagination-based imagery led to designs that were significantly more appealing to the customer. An analysis of covariance subsequently revealed that this improvement in customer appeal was mediated both by the perceived usefulness of the design, and by its degree of originality. The dissertation concludes with the integration of the experimental findings, and a discussion of the potential of visual imagery as a tool in the new product design process.

This dissertation seeks to advance our understanding of how marketing principles can be used to improve the process of new product design. Specifically, it examines the potential of a specific cognitive process, visual mental imagery, as a tool to help designers maximize the appeal of new products in the eyes of their customers. A conceptual framework is presented that describes a process through which visual mental imagery might influence the customer appeal of a design output. This is followed by two experiments which test the hypotheses that flow from this model. The experiments manipulate both the type of visual imagery utilized, and the incorporation of the customer in the imagery invoked (content of the imagery), in order to examine their effects on the usefulness, originality, and customer appeal of the resulting design. Consistent with the proposed framework and its hypotheses, visualization of the customer, as part of the imagery process, proved to enhance design usefulness when this imagery was imagination-based, but not when it was memory-based. Furthermore, use of imagination-based imagery resulted in more original designs than pure memory-based imagery. Finally, and most importantly, the use of customer visualization in combination with imagination-based imagery led to designs that were significantly more appealing to the customer. An analysis of covariance subsequently revealed that this improvement in customer appeal was mediated both by the perceived usefulness of the design, and by its degree of originality. The dissertation concludes with the integration of the experimental findings, and a discussion of the potential of visual imagery as a tool in the new product design process. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Emotional design addresses peoples needs and desires which is at the center of product or technology development. Currently, there is no established process of emotional design in the field of industrial design to address research and design issues. A five step emotional design process is proposed in this thesis. Research theories and methods on emotional design were reviewed. Existing pantry storage products were evaluated. User research was targeted on women between age 45 and 60. Research data were collected through interviews and surveys. Research findings were produced by analyzing the data using a proposed data analysis method called Product Emotion Baseline. Product function design, product interface design and user experience study on smart pantry were presented. All five steps of emotional design process were applied to smart pantry design to illustrate in detail how the proposed process works.