Product emotion : a necessity in product development process and the role of CAD

According to Peter B. (2010), despite the importance of technological capability, technology is not only what it takes to captivate customers. Successful innovations as two dimensions: functionality and emotion. Functionality is what product does while emotion is how products make customer feel. Both are needed to make customers engaged with a product because there is a degree of emotional response to product in consumer behaviour (Norman, 2004). Therefore, this paper investigate the knowledge regarding how emotions are related to products, illuminate on how product emotion can be integrated into product development process and also the role of Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools in achieving this. In order to test the theory, a study was performed using PDD approach by Crossly (2003). This was done to test the viability of the approach in achieving a user centred design. A digital prototype of an ashtray was created and a questionnaire with the image and eight emotions was given to participants (both smokers and non-smokers) so as to know their emotional responses towards the product. The result gave interesting findings such as high values of pleasant emotions and lack of boredom emotion by smokers and also the differences between smokers and non-smokers responses. The chart used also revealed an equilibrium point where both smokers and non-smokers have equal emotional value towards the product.