Application of Kansei Engineering on the design of a portable hard disk drive

• Main Author: Peh, Boon Bee.
• Other Authors: David Lee Butler
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Industrial engineering::Human factors engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/40607
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report records the process of the application of Kansei Engineering, a consumer-oriented product development process, in the evaluation of the various Portable Hard Disk Drive designs. The concepts of emotional design and Kansei Engineering are first explored in the Literature Review. Using concepts and methodologies of Kansei Engineering, the aesthetic form is evaluated against high-level Kansei words that describe a Portable Hard Disk Drive on a semantic differential scale for each Kansei word. These Kansei words may be a description of the aesthetic qualities of the Portable Hard Disk Drive or the functionality of it. In order to carry out the Kansei Engineering, the author has to perform various primary data collection method such as conducting surveys and focus group. Careful considerations have to be made for every collection method performed. This includes the structure of the question, demographics and the accuracies of the data that could be obtained. The focus group will be the highlight of this project because many conclusions can be drawn from it. The Portable Hard Disk Drive will be modeled using blue foam to make sure that only form is evaluated on the semantic scale during the focus group. Subsequently, the data obtained from the evaluation will be analyzed using the Analytical Hierarchical Process. The analyzed data shows that the form of the Portable Hard Disk Drive affects the consumers’ choice when purchasing a Portable Hard Disk Drive. Also, measureable qualities such as weight, reliability and functionality of the Hard Disk has different ratings on the semantic scale despite the Portable Hard Disk Drive models are not functional and are made of the same material. This means that the physical form of a Portable Hard Disk Drive is capable of influencing a consumer’s perception on the tangible qualities.