O envolvimento do consumidor é fundamental nas fases iniciais de projetos de produtos inovadores, para a coleta de informações sobre interesses e preferências orientadores do processo de geração de ideias e conceitos de novos produtos. Uma das formas de viabilizar este envolvimento é utilizando ferramentas do tipo Sistema de Engenharia Kansei. Esse tipo de ferramenta permite a tradução de inputs de grande volume de consumidores em configurações de produtos otimizados para auxiliar a equipe de projeto, no Processo de Desenvolvimento de Produtos. Há duas principais limitações nos Sistemas de Engenharia Kansei propostos na literatura. A primeira é a operacionalização do envolvimento do consumidor na etapa de definição do campo das propriedades, i.e., captação dos dados de entrada dos consumidores. A segunda é a continuidade do envolvimento, com a intenção de fornecer informações atualizadas à equipe de projetos de produtos. Este trabalho propõe e testa procedimento automático para apoiar a definição do campo das propriedades utilizando inputs indiretos de consumidores obtidos em lojas virtuais, empregando e adaptando métodos utilizados em aplicações de Sistemas de Engenharia Kansei e Sistemas de Recomendação Híbridos. O procedimento automático fornece como resultado principal uma lista de produtos e propriedades, obtidos da realidade, representativos do domínio Kansei para utilização nas etapas posteriores de um Sistema de Engenharia Kansei. O teste do procedimento automático demonstrou que a dissimilaridade presente no conjunto inicial de produtos determina o número máximo de produtos representativos do domínio; e, que o grupo de produtos e propriedades representativos do domínio, obtido da aplicação do procedimento automático, pode apresentar disparidade com relação a um grupo referencial obtido utilizando método de planejamento de experimentos, embora atenda aos critérios informados na literatura seminal de Engenharia Kansei. / The customer involvement is critical in the early stages of innovative projects, to collect information about guiding interests and preferences of the process of generating ideas and concepts of new products. One way to facilitate this involvement is using the type system of Kansei Engineering tools. This type of tool allows the translation of large volume of inputs of consumers in products optimized settings to assist the project team, the Product Development Process. There are two main limitations in Kansei Engineering Systems proposed in the literature. The first is the operationalization of consumer involvement in the step of defining the field of properties, i.e., capture the input data consumer. The second is the continued involvement with the intention to provide updated information to the team of product designs. This thesis proposes and tests automatic procedure to support the definition of the properties field using indirect inputs of consumers obtained in virtual stores, using and adapting methods used in applications of Kansei Engineering Systems and Hybrid Recommender Systems. The automatic procedure provides as main result a list of products and properties obtained from reality, representative of Kansei domain for use in the later stages of a Kansei Engineering System. The automatic test procedure showed that the dissimilarity present in the initial product set determines the maximum number of products representative of the field; and that the product group and representative properties of the domain obtained from the application of the automatic procedure can present disparity with respect to a reference group obtained using planning method of experiments, although meets the criteria given in the seminal literature Kansei Engineering.

La conception de produits de marque nécessite de considérer en même temps les aspects qui concernent la perception du produit (lié à l'évaluation et les émotions des consommateurs et les valeurs de la marque), ainsi que les aspects techniques et d'ingénierie, comprenant les fonctionnalités, les performances, le coût du produit et sa fabricabilité. Dans un contexte pluridisciplinaire, les designers de produits et les ingénieurs doivent collaborer et communiquer entre eux pour obtenir un produit satisfaisant qui plaise émotionnellement aux consommateurs et qui réponde techniquement aux performances attendues et qui est faisable à fabriquer. Cependant, cette collaboration entre les designers et les ingénieurs est difficile à cause de leurs différentes connaissances, approches et responsabilités au cours du processus de conception. Cette recherche s’intéresse aux questions du comment soutenir la communication entre les designers et les ingénieurs de produits et comment soutenir l'intégration de point de vue l'ingénierie au plus tôt dans le processus de conception de produit de marque. Les résultats de cette recherche contribuent à la proposition d'une approche pour intégrer le point de vue de l'ingénierie au point de vue de design (émotions et esthétique). Une proposition et évaluation de trois approches pour soutenir la communication entre les designers et les ingénieurs est étudiée dans cette recherche. De même une approche d'intégration est proposée suivant des trois étapes de modélisation, transformation et intégration des connaissances d'ingénierie à la connaissance de design. Par notre travail, nous avons contribué au projet SKIPPI, dans le développement d'un logiciel d'aide à la génération d'idées et à la prise de décision dans les phases amont de la conception. / Design of branded products involves consideration of both perceptual aspects of the product appearance (related to consumers’ evaluation and emotions and the brand values) as well as the technical and engineering aspects including manufacturing feasibility, performances, and cost. Within a multidisciplinary design context, product designers and engineering designers need to collaborate and communicate together to achieve a satisfactory product that is emotionally appealing to the consumers and is technically performing the intended functions, and is feasible to manufacture. However, such collaboration between product designers and engineering designers is difficult due to their different knowledge background, work approaches and responsibilities during the design process. This research deals with the questions of how to support the communication between product designers and engineering designers and how to support the integration of the engineering viewpoint earlier in the design process of branded product. Proposition and evaluation of three potential approaches to support communication between product designers and engineering designers is investigated in this research. Likewise an integration approach is proposed following the three steps of modeling, transforming and integrating the engineering knowledge to design knowledge. The results of this research contribute to the SKIPPI project, in the development of a software to support idea generation and the decision-making in the upstream design phase.

L'expérience de l'utilisateur (UX) est devenue une préoccupation majeure pour la conception de produits. Aujourd'hui, il existe différents outils pour l'évaluation de l'expérience de l'utilisateur sur l'apparence des produits finaux. Très peu d'outils et de méthodes permettant d'anticiper l'expérience de l'utilisateur au cours de la conception amont existent. Cette thèse explore le large éventail de dimensions en conception qui constituent potentiellement l'expérience de l'utilisateur. Les propriétés dynamiques des produits apparaissent comme un facteur important. Dans les expérimentations, un logiciel basé sur des mots et des liens d'inspiration, ainsi que la technique ‘body storming' sont testés comme un moyen de génération de l'expérience utilisateur. Les concepts et les gestes d'interaction produits sont ensuite évalués par une combinaison de questionnaires et de mesures comportementales et physiologiques. Les résultats des expérimentations montrent premièrement qu'une large gamme de dimensions de conception doit être considérée dès la conception amont, deuxièmement qu'il est possible d'appliquer les évaluations UX sur les premiers concepts et troisièmement que les évaluations UX peuvent également être effectuées sur les propriétés dynamiques comme les gestes d'interaction. Cette thèse apporte aussi un nouveau modèle sur l'expérience de l'utilisateur et une liste de dimensions en conception pour la recherche en design et pour les designers. / The User Experience (UX) has become a major concern for the design of consumer products. Today exist various tools for the evaluation of static properties of final products on their User Experience value. However, very few tools and methods are available that allow anticipating the future User Experience during the first stages of product conception. This thesis explores the wide range of design dimensions that potentially form the experience of the user. Dynamic product properties emerge as an important factor for User Experience. In the studies a software based on inspiration words and links, as well as the technique body storming are tested as a new means of User Experience generation. The produced early concepts and interaction gestures are then evaluated through a combination of questionnaires, behavioural and physiological measurements. The study results show firstly that a wide range of design dimension needs to be regarded to design for User Experience, secondly that it is possible to apply UX evaluations on early concepts and thirdly that UX evaluations can also be done on dynamic properties like interaction gestures. This thesis furthermore contributes design research and practice with a new model on the mechanism of User Experience and a list of design dimensions for early product conception.

L'expérience perçue lors de l'utilisation de produits est récemment devenue un facteur différenciateur majeur entre les principaux acteurs de l'industrie. Elle influence désormais grandement le succès de nouveaux produits. En parallèle, l'intérêt de la communauté de recherche en design sur le sujet va en grandissant. La présente recherche apporte une contribution à ces deux mondes en explorant des moyens de définir et représenter des intentions d'expérience utilisateur. Une des originalités de cette recherche réside dans le fait que son assise théorique combine les notions complémentaires d'expérience utilisateur et de processus « kansei » (processus mental affectif) utilisées originellement par des communautés scientifiques différentes. Elle fait aussi partie du groupe très restreint de travaux qui investiguent les liens entre ces considérations et le monde industriel.Au long des cinq expérimentations qui composent ce mémoire, j'explore la création d'outils et de méthodologies s'intéressant au processus kansei des futurs utilisateurs et permettant l'élaboration puis la communication d'intentions venant nourrir le processus de conception de nouveaux produits. L'influence de la nature des représentations amont sur la compréhension réciproque au sein d'équipes de conception multiculturelles (multi-nationalité et disciplinaire) ainsi que sur différentes typologies de projets prospectifs centrés sur l'expérience sont aussi mis en avant. En termes de contributions académiques, cette recherche a permis de modéliser l'information design échangée au sein d'équipes de conception visant à impacter les processus kansei des potentiels futurs utilisateurs. Elle a aussi mis en valeur les qualités et l'importance des représentations amonts multi-sensorielles. Les contributions industrielles couvrent quant à elles, la création d'outils, de méthodologies et de représentations amonts permettant de caractériser l'approche dite du « Kansei Design », et d'établir des liens entre ces différents aspects et trois typologies de projets de développements de nouveaux concepts. / In the industrial context, users' experience with products recently became a major differentiation factor between competitors and can greatly influence the success of a product. In parallel, the interest from the design research community about this topic is also growing. This research intends to contribute to both contexts by investigating the definition and representation of user experience intentions. When defining the theoretical background of this research a link will be created between the complementary notions of user experience and kansei process. Based on this original field of study, this dissertation will discuss design activities undertaken by design teams in order to nourish the much wider industrial design process.With the five experiments that will be presented in this dissertation, I will explore the creation of tools and methodologies centred on potential users' kansei process and supporting the creation of intentions related to the user experience of products to be designed. I will also investigate how the nature of the resulting early representations can impact reciprocal understanding within multi-cultural design teams, and finally how the developed approach (Kansei Design approach) can impact different typologies of new concept development projects.In terms of academic contributions, this research enabled to model the exchange of kansei-related design information among design-teams and highlighted the added value of multi-sensory early representations resulting from experience-centred design activities. Regarding industrial contributions, the different experiments made it possible to characterise the Kansei Design approach in terms of tools, methodologies, and early representations. Moreover a link was established between the different characteristics of this approach and three typologies of new experience-centred concept development projects leading to different products development projects.

La prise en compte des enjeux environnementaux est un sujet très présent dans notre société actuelle. Dans le domaine du développement de produits, l'Eco-conception est une démarche qui permet la considération de ces enjeux en proposant de réduire les impacts environnementaux des produits tout au long de leur cycle de vie. La phase d'utilisation du cycle de vie est une étape cruciale puisque le mode d'utilisation des produits peut avoir des conséquences non négligeables sur leur performance environnementale. Nous proposons dans cette thèse d'enrichir la compréhension de cette phase d'utilisation en mettant en évidence les composantes Kansei qui jouent un rôle dans l'interaction de l'utilisateur avec le produit et qui peuvent être intégrées en amont de la conception de produits à faible impact environnemental. Notre démarche permet de mieux renseigner la phase d'utilisation, contribuant ainsi à la maitrise de la performance environnementale des produits. Nous démontrons à travers notre recherche que l'utilisateur peut être défini, non seulement par des informations basiques que nous retrouvons communément dans la Conception Centrée Utilisateur, mais également à partir d'informations subjectives apportées par la dimension Kansei. A travers nos expérimentations, nous mettons en application deux attributs EcoKansei correspondants aux valeurs et aux émotions afin d'illustrer la modélisation utilisateur pour la conception de produits à faible impact environnemental. L'approche que nous proposons vient en complément au projet EcoUse qui vise à développer une méthodologie d'Eco-conception centrée utilisateur. Les apports de notre démarche sont multiples. Du point de vue de la recherche, une mise en relation de l'Eco-conception et du Kansei, qui sont à la base complètement déconnectées entraine un enrichissement mutuel entre ces deux approches. Du point de vue industriel, une démarche d'Eco-conception appuyée par les études Kansei doit permettre la conception de nouveaux produits qui auront l'avantage d'être à la fois mieux acceptés par les utilisateurs car en adéquation avec leur sensibilité environnementale et en même temps moins impactants pour l'environnement. / The consideration of environmental issues is a very strong topic in our society nowadays. In the field of Product Development, Ecodesign is a methodology that allows the consideration of these issues by proposing to reduce the environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle. The use phase of the life cycle is a critical step as the way how the products are managed can have significant impact on their environmental performance. We propose in this thesis to enrich the understanding of the use phase by highlighting the Kansei Information that can play a major role in the interaction between the user and the product and thus can be integrated in the early phase of the Ecodesign process. Our approach provides a better understanding the use phase, by contributing to the mastery of the environmental performance of products. Our research points out that the user can be defined not only from basic information commonly used in the User Centered Design, but also from subjective information brought by the Kansei dimension. We carry out experiments in which we implement two EcoKansei attributes corresponding to the values and emotions in order to illustrate user modeling for Ecodesign. The approach we propose is a part of EcoUse project that aims to develop a methodology for user-centered Ecodesign. Various contributions of our approach can be pointed out. For the Research, linking Ecodesign with the Kansei studies, which are basically unconnected leads to mutual enrichment between these two approaches. For Industry, an Eco-design approach supported by Kansei Information enables the design of new products which will have the benefits of both providing less impacts to the environment, and at the same time being more accepted by users as these products match with their environmental sensitivity.

Ce travail de recherche a pour objectif général de proposer un modèle de mise en relation du design émotionnel avec la macrotexture et les matériaux pour aider les concepteurs à la sélection de finitions pour les produits industriels. Cette modélisation vise à valoriser le produit à travers l’exploration des mécanismes sensoriels, sémantiques et émotionnels, qui interviennent lors de la perception du produit par le consommateur. Le processus perceptif est ainsi pris en compte à travers différents modalités sensorielles de manière à enrichir le processus de conception. Le secteur d’application de notre recherche a été le secteur automobile, avec le produit « volant ». Ce produit a été analysé dans la catégorie Grand Public. Dans cette catégorie, les matériaux ont été analysés sur un ensemble de 7 différents modèles de volants avec une population française et brésilienne. Par ailleurs, différents paramètres techniques tels que, la dureté, la rugosité et la dissipation thermique, ont été pris en compte dans la mise en relation pour renforcer la communication entre les domaines du Design et l’Ingénierie. / This research has the overall goal to propose a model linking emotional design with macrotexture and materials to help designers in the selection of finishes for industrial products. This model aims to promote the product through the exploration of sensory, semantic and emotional mechanisms, involved in the perception of the product by the consumer. The perceptive process is thus considered through different sensory modalities to enrich the design process. The application sector of our research was the automotive sector, with the product "steering wheel". This product was analyzed in the General Public category. In this category, the materials were analyzed within a set of 7 different steering wheels models by a population of French and Brazilian users. Moreover, different technical parameters such as, hardness, roughness and heat dissipation have been taken into account in the linking to strengthen communication between the fields of Design and Engineering.

Designingenjörsstudenterna Kajsa Phalén och Emelie Lövgren Berg på Högskolan i Skövde har under våren 2016 arbetat med ett produktutvecklingsprojekt i samverkan med leksaksföretaget Strawbees. Företaget vill börja sälja sina kreativa leksaker i butik och vill därför utveckla ett säljande displayställ som ska bära produkterna. En grundläggande förstudie har gjorts för att definiera en målgrupp som består av kunder och andra intressenter. Förstudien täcker också marknadsförings-strategier i butik och undersökningar som gjorts för att öka förståelsen för målgruppens behov. Marknadsanalyser över konkurrenter gav inspiration från redan befintliga lösningar på problemet och kollage över färgkoder och formspråk gav resultatet den känsla som företaget vill förmedla. Antalet produkter displaystället skulle bära hade stort fokus för starten av konceptgenereringen och kombinationer av hur produkterna kan placeras lade grunden för displayställets utformning. Genom analyser kring hur konkurrenter löst visuell design för displayställ skapades visuella teman. De framtagna utformningarna ihop med visuella teman och den känsla som företaget vill förmedla skapade sedan olika koncept. De vidareutvecklade koncepten analyserades efter hur de passade in i dess rätta miljö, en leksaksbutik. Utefter upptäckta brister kunde antalet koncept begränsas till enbart två stycken som senare blev prototyper. Dessa prototyper testades i verklig storlek ihop med de produkter som displaystället skulle rymma. Ett koncept kunde därefter bestämmas och vidareutvecklas i detaljform för att på bästa sätt nå upp till krav och önskemål. / During spring 2016, the engineering students Kajsa Phalén and Emelie Lövgren Berg, at the University of Skövde, developed a product in cooperation with the toy company Strawbees. The company wants to sell their creative toys in stores and therefore wants to develop a sales display stand that will carry the products. A basic feasibility study has been done to define a target group of customers and other stakeholders. The feasibility study also covers marketing strategies in shops and studies were carried out to increase understanding of the target group needs. Market analysis of competitors gave inspiration from existing solutions of the problem and a collage over color codes and idioms gave the result the feeling that the company wants to convey. The number of products that the display stand would wear was a major focus in the beginning of the concept generation. Combinations of how the products can be placed laid the foundation for the design of the display stand. Through analysis of how competitors solved the visual design for the display stand some visual themes were created. The developed designs together with visual themes and the feeling that the company wants to convey created various concepts. The new concepts were analyzed for how they would fit into its natural environment, a toy store. Because of some shortcomings the number of concept could be limited to only two, who later became prototypes. These prototypes were tested in real size together with the products that the display stand would accommodate. A concept could then be determined and developed in detail as to the best way to reach up to the demands and wishes of the company.

<p>New food product development is so often confronted with failure in the market. One of the significant reasons is, nowadays, the customer preference is no longer simply only determined by a few factors rather a combination of various needs. This article presents an affective engineering methodology “Kansei Engineering” which can tailor the product by the customer need. This methodology is able to assist the food product developer to connect the consumer affection with the product properties in order to develop the food product with the most affective influence deep in customer’s mind associated with product. Using this systematic affective methodology “Kansei engineering” approach would help the company to develop the food with consumer amenity.</p>

Feelings and impressions of a product are important for the decision of purchasing it or not. Designing attractive products therefore requires knowledge about the feelings and impressions the products evoke on the customer and the user. Integrating such affective values in product design requires the introduction of suitable methods into companies’ product design processes, methods which can capture and convert subjective and even unconscious feelings about a product into concrete design parameters. This is sometimes referred to as ‘Affective Engineering’. One methodology in this context is Kansei Engineering, which has been developed in Japan in order to design feelings into products. The aim of this thesis was twofold: Firstly, to improve understanding of the nature of products making emotional impact on the users and customers. Secondly, to identify and improve methods capable of grasping those affective values and translating them into concrete product design solutions. This thesis presents three empirical studies and two methodological papers, relating to warehouse trucks and laminate flooring. The first study was made on user impact of warehouse trucks in three different European countries. A second study dealt with affective values of rocker-switches in work vehicles, such as warehouse trucks. A third study on this truck type compared the old manoeuvring panel evaluated in the previous studies with a newly introduced manoeuvring panel in order to validate the impact of the design improvements made after the first study. Further, a conceptual model on Kansei Engineering methodology was proposed in a methods paper based on the experience from the studies performed in order to provide a structure for performing Kansei Engineering studies. The fifth paper had the purpose of validating and improving the proposed model using laminate flooring as research object. More structured ways of identifying design parameters and relevant product properties was given high priority in the improvement work of the methodology. A model for spanning the Space of Product Properties was presented and applied. This thesis also deals with other improvement areas in the methodology and proposed new developments, including the use of scales, experimental design and validation methods. In conclusion, Kansei Engineering is a concept and a methodology in strong development, a framework in which tools and methods are continuously developed, added and integrated.

New food product development is so often confronted with failure in the market. One of the significant reasons is, nowadays, the customer preference is no longer simply only determined by a few factors rather a combination of various needs. This article presents an affective engineering methodology “Kansei Engineering” which can tailor the product by the customer need. This methodology is able to assist the food product developer to connect the consumer affection with the product properties in order to develop the food product with the most affective influence deep in customer’s mind associated with product. Using this systematic affective methodology “Kansei engineering” approach would help the company to develop the food with consumer amenity.