Product Evaluation Process Research Articles

Wearable Clothing Drop Box Design Using Persuasive Design Approach

The phenomenon of fast fashion (the trend of dressing in a short period of just six months to two years) is a trend that occurs today. This trend raises the problem of stacking clothes. Clothes that are not reused should be used and distributed to others in need or known as the recycling concept. This study aims to design a drop box that can collect and distribute suitable clothes by using Persuasive Design approach. Dropbox is used to improve the concept of sustainability of clothing products. The initial stage of the study was an interview to explore the target of user behaviour in using clothes and explore the inhibiting factors experienced by users due to confusion in distributing their used clothes. Affective design approach is chosen by applying tunnelling, reduction and conditioning technology methods. Dropbox design built in a physical and digital display of the product. The product evaluation process using Usability Testing with the results obtained an efficiency rate of 100%, an effectiveness of 90.625%, and a System Usability Score (SUS) of 83.44, showing that the prototype has good usability. In the persuasive aspect, namely effectiveness, quality, and capability, average values of 5.75, 6.125, and 5.958 were obtained. Improvement recommendations are made based on the results of evaluation by respondents, namely make a clear information at drop box product and display improvement.

A product evaluation and innovation process based on the circular design degree and patents evolution

People have recently become aware of the need to protect the environment. The integration of the circular economy concept and product design has become an essential strategic consideration, and the world is bound to give more attention to circular design. It aims to consider restorability and renewability in stages of the life cycle while doing design, such as the pathway of recycling, disassembling, reusing, and so forth. The purpose is to let waste become resources endlessly and create value continuously. Moreover, facing the demand for constantly changing products, the capability of innovation is also crucial. Hence, a product development process with the notion of circular design and innovative methods with the patent trend is incredibly important, but as we know so far there are few such approaches available, which motivates our study.To begin with, this study identifies five circular design criteria and forty elements to develop a framework for establishing a product design evaluation system for the waste electrical and electronic equipment products from the perspective of the product life cycle and operation procedure. The performance index of circular design degree (CDD) is created for the evaluation system using the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process method. Then, the product design can be evaluated to identify the criteria and elements with a lower CDD score for improvement. In addition, this study uses the TRIZ tool inventive principle from the contradiction matrix to find suitable patents, meanwhile, we use product attributes to find their evolution trends. Finally, after combining product evolution trends and patents, product innovative ideas are generated for suggestions to product designers. A small household electric appliance is used as a case study for illustrating the usefulness of the proposed methodology and guiding the product designers on how to improve and innovate their products with circular design consideration.

Natural Language processing based Automatic Text Summarization

Text summary is a well-known technique for distilling a document's primary points. Beginning with data extraction from a website link, the recommended approach for text summarizing and keyword extraction continues through a number of steps. It will help with the creation of a machine learning and natural language processing solution to replace the existing product evaluation process (NLP). The next major one is Automatic Text Summarization (ATS), which may simply summarize the source data and provide us with a condensed form that preserves the content and general meaning. Automatic Text Summarization was proposed in the 1950s, but the discipline is still in its infancy. Undirected graphs, weighted graphs, keyword extraction, and sentence extraction are all used in the Text Rank algorithm. In this paper, we will look upon. The proposed solutions for text summarization and keyword extraction passes through a series of processes, beginning with information or data extraction through the website link, eliminating outliers and improper information, and constructing a summary of the extracted information or data. It will assist in the development of a machine learning and natural language processing solution to the traditional product review procedure (NLP). Key Words: Text Summarization, relevant Information, summary, Natural language processing (NLP), Text Summarization.

A Novel Approach of Integrating Natural Language Processing Techniques with Fuzzy TOPSIS for Product Evaluation

Product designers need to fully understand consumers’ emotional preferences and responses for product forms to improve products. However, users and designers have different understandings and concepts in the product evaluation process, which will lead to cognitive asymmetry in the product design and evaluating process. This phenomenon prevents designers to grasp users’ needs, increasing the risk of product development failure. To this end, this paper proposes a product evaluation method that combines natural language processing techniques and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making into a new integrated way to reduce the cognitive difference between users and designers, so as to solve the problem of cognitive asymmetry. This was done firstly by obtaining the review data of products from users on the Internet, based on a web crawler, and then constructing word vectors based on natural language processing techniques to realize the parametric expression of the Kansei image. Secondly, by using a statistical method to extract the product scheme that meets the preferences of users and designers, and then quantifying the relationship between the product form and Kansei image based on a grey relational analysis (GRA). Finally, by calculating the indicator weight based on the Entropy method and using the fuzzy TOPSIS method to explore the prioritization of the product design alternatives in view of the Kansei needs of users. Taking the smart capsule coffee machine as an example, the feasibility and effectiveness of this method are verified. In particular, the method proposed in this research can not only enable different cognitive subjects to achieve cognitive symmetry, but also filter out product forms that meet the cognitive needs of users. Moreover, this study provides a theoretical basis and practical significance for reducing the cognitive differences between cognitive subjects in the whole process of product design, and provides a systematic framework for the industry to effectively connect customer needs and product design decisions. At the same time, this study has introduced a new method for Kansei engineering.

Interlaboratory Comparison as a Source of Information for the Product Evaluation Process. Case Study of Ceramic Tiles Adhesives.

In this study, the results obtained by 19 laboratories participating in 2 editions of the interlaboratory comparison (ILC) determining 2 properties of ceramic tiles adhesives (CTAs), i.e., initial tensile adhesion strength and tensile adhesion strength after water immersion following EN 12004, were analyzed. The results show that participating laboratories maintain a constant quality of their work. The use of z-score analysis, under ISO 13528, allows for classifying 89.5% to 100% of laboratories as satisfactory, depending on the measurement’s kind and edition. The remaining laboratories are classified as questionable. The investigation of the predominant mode of failure of the CTA’s samples tested in the two editions shows significant differences. From the perspective of laboratories, the goal of the ILC has been achieved. From the standpoint of a manufacturer who evaluates a product’s properties when placing it on the market, the results indicate the necessity of a particular treatment of the product evaluation process because the variability of the obtained results is significant. It increases the possibility of the product failing to meet the assessment criteria verified by the construction market supervision authorities. The manufacturer must consider all possible variations in the risk analysis, including the ILC results, to improve the assessment process of CTAs.

Continuous marketing in the social business platform based on identifying consumer boring products

In the social business platform, continuous marketing to consumers can fully explore the consumer purchasing potential. However, since consumers can be influenced by their social friends, their tastes often change, which resulting in the cold start problem of familiar users (CSPFU), and the traditional product recommendation methods are difficult to achieve satisfactory results because they focus on identifying the preferable new products instead of boring familiar products. Therefore, a consumer multi-stage compensation product evaluation model (CMCPEM) based on the multidimensional correlation of products and customers to identify the products that consumers may feel tired is proposed. Specifically, the multidimensional correlation indexes are firstly proposed to depict the preferences of the consumer for the target product to be identified, other consumers who have social contagion and structural equivalence relationships with the consumer and other consumers of homogeneous products. After the direct linear, non-linear and indirect fusion of these multidimensional correlation indexes, the compensation indexes (CIs) are proposed to comprehensively describe the first stage of product evaluation process of consumers. Then, J test in the non-nested model is used to screen out the non-nested CIs that consumers focus on. Finally, in the third stage, the final decision result is given by comprehensively considering CIs that consumers focus on and the indexes that represent consumers’ favorite. Experiment results on YELP data confirm the effectiveness of CMCPEM in successfully launching the continuous marketing campaign.

Seeing It Is Like Touching It: Unraveling the Effective Product Presentations on Online Apparel Purchase Decisions and Brain Activity (An fMRI Study)

Unlike brick-and-mortar stores where consumers can use all of their senses to examine a product, online retailers must properly present products to shoppers via a computer-mediated interface. In this exploratory study, we investigate how the brain makes purchase decisions when it encounters different types of visual presentation strategies. Specifically, we use event-related fMRI to study brain activation preceding purchase decisions under three visual presentation strategies: (1) static picture, (2) image zooming, and (3) rotation video. Twenty-four (24) participants made 60 apparel purchase decisions. Utilizing machine learning, we study whether and how various neural circuits are engaged in purchase decision-making in regard to different types of visual sensory information. The functional neuroimaging results suggest high accuracy (highest: 95%, Rotation condition) in predicting purchase decisions using brain activity in the product evaluation process. Furthermore, cross-category validation reveals the activation patterns under the Rotation condition most successfully predict choices across the other two presentation conditions: this suggests a potential universal brain activity pattern in these apparel purchase decisions. Finally, we found some brain regions (such as the cerebellum) that are less likely to be associated with purchase decisions but are considered influential in predicting online apparel purchase decisions in the context of watching a rotation product video. The cerebellar activation may suggest association with spatial cognition and virtual navigation in addition to motor control. This study contributes to the research field of NeuroIS and online shopper study. The results provide empirical evidence to support the refined S-O-R theoretical model Jacoby (2002) and heuristic information process and inform the practical implications of sensory-engaging presentations in helping consumers to make online purchase decisions.

Evaluation and Balance of Cognitive Friction: Evaluation of Product Target Image Form Combining Entropy and Game Theory

With the great progress of product development technology, product forms have been greatly enriched by cognitive differences; users and designers have formed a “cognitive friction” phenomenon in the product evaluation process, which results in designers being unable to grasp user emotions accurately and risks of product development failure. This paper aims to balance the cognitive differences between cognitive subjects (users and designers) and evaluates the product image form. First, image entropy is used to evaluate and extract the weight of the product target image. Second, fuzzy Theil entropy is used to evaluate the cognitive friction between cognitive subjects, and its existence and size are visually presented. Then, a cognitive friction balance model is built by combining game theory, the comprehensive evaluation weight between cognitive subjects is obtained, and the product image form is ranked and optimized. Finally, all the research steps are described in the form of a household hair dryer. The results show that fuzzy Theil entropy and game theory have significant advantages in the evaluation and balance of cognitive friction in product design. Thus, the cognitive friction evaluation and balance model constructed from the fuzzy Theil entropy and game theory do not only enable different cognitive subjects to achieve cognitive symmetry, but also screen out product forms that meet the cognitive needs of users. This finding provides the theoretical basis and practical significance for the establishment of a closed-loop model in cognitive friction balance and the reduction of cognitive differences between cognitive subjects in the entire process of product design. It also introduces new ways of thinking and methods for cognitive science research.

It’s not all about function: investigating the effects of visual appeal on the evaluation of industrial products using the example of product color

PurposeIndustrial markets are generally associated with objective decision-making in which rational and functional product benefits are central. Recently, however, subjective aspects of decision-making, such as visual appeal, are attracting research attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine, first, the effect of product color as a non-functional design element on attitude toward the product and, second, the underlying causal relationships of this effect in the context of industrial products.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an online quasi-experiment in the dental market with a sample of 300 dentists. The product stimulus was a picture of a treatment chair that varied in color. An analysis of variance tested the effect of product color on attitude. Structural equation modeling investigated the underlying effects of product evaluation.FindingsThe results indicate that product color affects attitude toward the product. Further, the authors find an insightful causal chain of direct and indirect effects on attitude. The most effective path runs via visual appeal and aesthetics, while haptics and functionality are of minor importance.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for the effect of non-functional design elements such as product color on the evaluation of an industrial product. The results provide valuable insights into the effects on attitude in this context and stress the great importance of visual appeal and aesthetics in the product evaluation process.

Product Design Evaluation Method Using Consensus Measurement, Network Analysis, and AHP

Product evaluation practices spread throughout from initial creative stages to final products before communicating them to the market. They emphasize on assessing design alternatives against specified criteria, which can help promote design process, ensure design quality, and diminish design risk before making a decision. However, how to identify and improve the reliability of product evaluation opinions toward design alternatives has an important role in adding additional insurance and reducing uncertainty to successful product design. Aiming at this issue, this study employs a consensus model by integrating network analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The consensus model is constructed to measure the consistency of evaluators’ preferences and determine the rounds of evaluation. Complex network theory is integrated into the product evaluation process for network analysis of evaluators’ opinions, which can help determine evaluators’ weights in each evaluation round dynamically by changing the network topology. To obtain the weight of product evaluation indices, the AHP method is applied to avoid subjectivity given by evaluators. The process of the proposed method is presented, and the details are illustrated using a product evaluation example. The case study demonstrates that the proposed method is promising for improving the consensus level of evaluators’ opinions, reducing the influence of subjectivity, and finally improving the quality of design decision‐making.

Sense and sensibility: The impact of visual and auditory sensory input on marketplace morality

In a series of studies, we demonstrate that moral judgment is impacted by sensory input experienced during the product evaluation process due to its impact on mental construal level. We find that seeing or hearing a product while evaluating it elicits more concrete thought, which entails the consideration of contextual factors and extenuating circumstances, and hence leads to moral leniency. Importantly, we show this phenomenon holds only among consumers who possess a flexible moral mindset, which makes them more inclined to consider contextual factors when making moral judgments. This work is the first we are aware of to demonstrate systematic effects of visual and auditory sensory input on marketplace morality, as well as the moderating role of moral mindset. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.

Seven-Year Surveillance of the Clinical Performance of a Blood Glucose Test Strip Product.

A key approach in enabling people with diabetes to better manage their condition is through self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG). Any functional SMBG system should demonstrate clinical accuracy across a broad glucose range and be insensitive to hematocrit. Furthermore, it should be incumbent on the manufacturer to demonstrate that their product continues to meet clinical accuracy claims during product lifetime. Test strips from a globally distributed SMBG product were sampled from randomly selected production batches as part of the manufacturer's routine product evaluation process. Clinical accuracy was assessed within diabetes patients at 3 clinic sites against a standard reference method and evaluated against system accuracy in accordance with the ISO 15197:2015 standard (unchanged from ISO 15197:2013 in terms of performance specifications). Data were collected over 7 years (2010-2016) and comprised 73,600 individual glucose results. Overall clinic performance was assessed, as was accuracy at low and high glucose levels and extremes of hematocrit. Across the 7-year surveillance period, overall test strip clinical accuracy was 97.8% versus the 95% ISO-defined minimum criterion with by-year values of 97.0-98.6%. Accuracy at the lowest (≤50 mg/dL) and highest (>400 mg/dL) ranges of glucose was 97.0% and 98.3% respectively. Within these low/high blood glucose subpopulations, accuracy at the lower and upper first percentile hematocrit ranges, was 98.9%, and 97.1% respectively. This 7-year surveillance program showed the test strips to have excellent clinical accuracy at the outer ranges of subject blood glucose and hematocrit, based on assessment against the ISO 15197:2015 clinical accuracy criterion.

Using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to determine product usability: A proposed theoretical framework.

BACKGROUND: In order to compare existing usability data to ideal goals or to that for other products, usability practitioners have tried to develop a framework for deriving an integrated metric. However, most current usability methods with this aim rely heavily on human judgment about the various attributes of a product, but often fail to take into account of the inherent uncertainties in these judgments in the evaluation process.OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a universal method of usability evaluation by combining the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) and the fuzzy evaluation method. By integrating multiple sources of uncertain information during product usability evaluation, the method proposed here aims to derive an index that is structured hierarchically in terms of the three usability components of effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a product.METHODS: With consideration of the theoretical basis of fuzzy evaluation, a two-layer comprehensive evaluation index was first constructed. After the membership functions were determined by an expert panel, the evaluation appraisals were computed by using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation technique model to characterize fuzzy human judgments. Then with the use of AHP, the weights of usability components were elicited from these experts.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Compared to traditional usability evaluation methods, the major strength of the fuzzy method is that it captures the fuzziness and uncertainties in human judgments and provides an integrated framework that combines the vague judgments from multiple stages of a product evaluation process.

Real-time Analysis of Online Product Reviews by Means of Multi-layer Feed-forward Neural Networks

In the recent past, the quantitative analysis of online product reviews (OPRs) has become a popular manifestation of marketing intelligence activities focusing on products that are frequently subject to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Typical elements of OPRs are overall star ratings, product at- tribute scores, recommendations, pros and cons, and free texts. The first three elements are of pa r- ticular interest because they provide an aggregate view of reviewers’ opinions about the products of interest. However, the significance of individual product attributes in the overall evaluation pro c- ess can vary in the course of time. Accordingly, ad hoc analyses of OPRs that have been downloaded at a certain point in time are of limited value for dynamic eWOM monitoring because of their snapshot character. On the other hand, opinion platforms can increase the meaningfulness of the OPRs posted there and, therewith, the usefulness of the platform as a whole, by directing eWOM activities to those product attributes that really matter at present. This paper therefore in- troduces a neural network-based approach that allows the dynamic tracking of the influence the posted scores of product attributes have on the overall star ratings of the concerning products. By using an elasticity measure, this approach supports the identification of those attributes that tend to lose or gain significance in the product evaluation process over time. The usability of this ap- proach is demonstrated using real OPR data on digital cameras and hotels.

The Impact of Consumer Ethnocentrism, Product Involvement, and Product Knowledge on Country of Origin Effects: An Empirical Analysis on Turkish Consumers’ Product Evaluation

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to explore whether, in which ways, and to what extent country-of-origin (COO) information affects the product-evaluation process in Turkey as a less-developed country. Moderating effects of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), product involvement, and product knowledge were also explored. Findings showed that COO cues have a significant main effect on the product-evaluation process. Although moderator variables (CE, product involvement, and product knowledge) do not have a significant effect alone on the product-evaluation process, they negatively moderate the relationship between COO cues and product evaluation.As far as we are aware, the roles of COO, CE product involvement, and product knowledge on product evaluation have not been simultaneously included in the same research model in previous empirical studies. So, as the original contribution of this article, this study investigates the interaction effects of CE, product involvement, and product knowledge on the relationship between COO cues and product evaluation in an emerging market.

Neural correlates of sensory‐enabling presentation: An fMRI study of image zooming and rotation video effects on online apparel shopping

ABSTRACTFor experience products, such as apparel, sensory‐enabling presentations that provide a sense of tactile experience have been suggested as an effective strategy to reduce perceived risk and increase the likelihood of a pleasurable shopping experience. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), we investigated whether sensory‐enabling presentations, specifically, image zooming and rotation videos, would evoke different cognitive and affective brain functions during product evaluation and purchase decision processes. The results suggested that whereas image zooming may evoke more visual perception in the product evaluation process, the rotation view evokes more mental imagery, pleasure, and reward anticipation during the purchase decision process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How Retailers’ Recommendation and Return Policies Alter Product Evaluations

This research investigates the interactive effects of retailers’ recommendations and return policies on consumers’ post-purchase evaluations of products which yield a mixed attribute performance. This article presents an account of the consumers’ post-purchase product evaluation process, in which counterfactual thinking plays a central role. Two studies show that consumers’ post-purchase evaluations of products, which yield a mixed attribute performance, tend to be more favorable under lenient return policies than under restricted return policies when retailers offer recommendations during the pre-purchase decision-making process, but more favorable under restricted return policies than under lenient return policies when retailers offer no recommendations.

An Ergonomics-oriented Product Development and Evaluation Process: A Case Study of Children's Pointing Device

This study proposes a process for the development and evaluation of ergonomic-oriented products. This process comprises three phases: (1) establishing design requirements, (2) developing the design concept, and (3) ergonomic evaluation of the prototype. In the first phase, a comprehensive collection of existing devices is assembled from which a small number of representative products are selected. Usability testing of these devices enables the establishment of design requirements. In the second phase, rough sketching is used to develop conceptual designs, followed by 3-D modeling and the fabrication of mockups and functional prototypes. In the third phase, ergonomic evaluation of the prototype includes evaluation of participants, setting up experimental apparatus, outlining experimental procedures, and producing an evaluation report. A case study involving the design of a pointing device for children is provided to demonstrate the practical implementation of the product development process.

Selecting safer building products in practice

In recent years the green building movement has focused increased attention on chemical hazards in building products and the need to select safer alternatives. This paper describes a number of tools available to architects and other building professionals and explores the product evaluation process behind one resource, BuildingGreen’s GreenSpec directory, as a window into the imperfect reality of alternatives assessment in the building design field.

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF LIMITED INFORMATION ACQUISITION: DO BRAND NAMES MAKE PRODUCT EVALUATIONS EASY?

Consumers are faced with an enormous amount of information when making product evaluations. Faced with this difficulty, they often try to simplify the evaluation process by limiting their information acquisition. The purpose of this study is to identify two types of such limited information acquisition strategies (IAS), brand-based and attribute-based, and to investigate their characteristics in the product evaluation process. A computer-based laboratory experiment was conducted to gather empirical evidence. The results identified differences in time spent on processing each piece of information, the amount of perceived effort, and the degree of perceived task complexity depending upon which limited IAS consumers utilized. Specifically, the utilization of attribute-based limited IAS simplifies consumers’ information processing, a finding that is consistent with the previous literature. However, that of brand-based limited IAS does not necessarily make the task easy; in fact, it may make it difficult. Implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.