Features of Kansei Engineering Characterizing its Use in Two Studies: Men's Everyday Footwear and Historic Footwear

The consumer goods sector is increasingly competitive with many manufacturers now operating in a global market. The growing numbers of on-line stores and product review Web sites have given the consumer new ways to compare and contrast product features before making a choice. The need for manufacturers to understand and interpret the wishes of their target consumer has led to the development of a number of techniques aimed at bringing the ‘voice of the customer’ into the design process. These have been successfully used by European manufacturers to identify quality and functional features critical to their customer base. However, an approach called Kansei engineering developed in the Far East uses the voice of the customer in a different way, identifying subjective emotional requirements as opposed to quality/functional requirements. Using Kansei engineering, it is possible to incorporate consumer emotion into the product design process, creating products that appeal to customers on a subjective level. This paper outlines the results of two field studies carried out as part of KENSYS, a Fifth Framework European project examining the use of Kansei engineering and product semantics as a suitable tool for European small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.