Virtual prototypes reveal more development ideas: comparison between customers' evaluation of virtual and physical prototypes

Abstract

This paper explores how consumers evaluate both virtual and physical prototypes of furniture products. In this study, the consumers are non-technical people without earlier experience on evaluating virtual prototypes. The evaluation task was not done in a laboratory but at a furniture fair with two stands. The physical prototypes were hand-made products presented in a typical fair stand, whereas the virtual ones were actual size, 3D visual images of the products. There were 28 fair visitors participating in the evaluation experiment. The result reveals that there were no differences between the descriptions of physical and virtual prototypes by consumers who evaluated Product Properties. In evaluating virtual prototypes, the consumers came up with more development ideas than when evaluating physical prototypes. Our study proposes that virtual prototypes are useful when consumers' participation in the development process is desirable.