Improving Design Methods by the Incorporation of Consumer Behavior Principles

Abstract

The Consumer Behavior area has developed over the years an extensive body of knowledge related to cultural, social and psychological factors that would influence the consumer at the time of purchase. The Design area could benefit from these findings by trying to incorporate some of this knowledge in a systematic way in its Design Methodology. This research aims to investigate if cultural aspects may be able to describe the behavior of group of individuals. Thus, this article describes an experiment where it was applied Hofstede's cultural model to compare a group of students regarding cultural aspects. The data collected showed that the groups presented differences and similarities regarding their cultural values, however it was not possible to generalize the findings and infer that similar groups would present the analogous results.