Meaning and Approach of New Product Designing Through Kansei Engineering

Abstract

This paper reopens Kansei Engineering (KE) that Nagamachi has founded and developed since 1970s from the perspective of design management. The frameworks of innovation of meaning and design thinking provide a new description of Nagamachi’s practice that translates unawakened future meanings of consumers’ life into product design. The product designing through KE therefore maximises its performance only when combined with solid design thinking, following the logic of science and utilising technology. In this sense, his hitherto works should actually be called Kansei Design. Furthermore, design thinking that consists of intuitive and analytical thinking also provides an opportunity for considering future application of artificial intelligence (AI) to KE approach. The two types of thinking are bridged by “abductive reasoning” of which development in programming is expected for increasing automated Kansei Design system.