Stakeholder’ perception of product messages

Författare

Elin Olander
Emma Linder

Summary, in English

Designers create messages that are encoded in the products’ design and consumers perceive

the products in an environment. Hence the product can be seen as a communication media between

the designer and different product stakeholders. The stakeholder’s response to the designer’s intent

embodied in the product design falls into three categories: cognitive, affective and behavioural. In

some cases, it is important to have an understanding of stakeholder response to product design. This

paper presents theories, approaches and methods for the understanding of stakeholder response to

designer intent embodied in product design and discusses them in relation to the extent to which they

are usable in a design project. The possible use and appropriateness of the theories and methods are

exemplified by the authors’ ongoing research projects. Since the perception of a product form is

subjective, there can be differences between designers’ and stakeholders’ responses to product

design. Therefore, in some cases, it is important to make designer intent and stakeholder response

explicit and to analyse the discrepancies. Using different approaches and methods to understand

stakeholder response can be used to improve a product design and for guiding the stakeholders’

choices of products to purchase.

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