Validating Perceived Sustainable Design Features Using a Novel Collage Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasreddine El-Dehaibi ◽  
Ting Liao ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Abstract Fierce e-commerce competition challenges designers to differentiate their products on platforms such as Amazon. To achieve this differentiation, designers must first understand how customers perceive product features. This paper builds on our previous work where we extracted features perceived as sustainable for French Press coffee carafes using annotations of Amazon reviews and natural language processing (NLP). We identified a gap between customer perceptions of sustainability and engineered sustainability. We now test our findings with a relatively new design method of collage placement and investigate how designers can use perceived features to set their products apart. We created collage activities for participants to evaluate French Press products on the three aspects of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic, and on how much they like the products. During the activity participants placed products along the two axes of the collage, sustainability and likeability, and labeled products with descriptive features that we provided. We found that participants more often selected features perceived as sustainable when placing products higher on the sustainability axis, demonstrating that these features resonated with customers. We also measured a low correlation between the two-axes of the collage activity, indicating that perceived sustainability and likeability can be measured separately. In addition, we found that product perceptions across sustainability aspects may differ between demographics. Based on these results, we confirm that features perceived as sustainable that are extracted from online reviews resonate with customers when thinking of various sustainability aspects and that the collage is an effective tool for assessing sustainability perceptions.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Nasreddine El Dehaibi ◽  
Ting Liao ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Abstract Designers are challenged to create sustainable products that resonate with customers, often focusing on engineered sustainability while neglecting perceived sustainability. We previously proposed a method for extracting perceived sustainable features from online reviews using annotations and natural language processing, testing our method with French press coffee carafes. We identified that perceived sustainability may not always align with engineered sustainability. We now investigate how designers can validate perceived features extracted from online reviews using a relatively new design method of collage placement where participants drag and drop products on a collage and select features from a drop-down menu. We created collage activities for participants to evaluate French press products on the three aspects of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic, and on how much they like the products. During the activity participants placed products along the two axes of the collage, sustainability and likeability, and labeled products with descriptive features. We found that participants more often selected our previously extracted features when placing products higher on the sustainability axis, validating that the perceived sustainable features resonate with users. We also measured a low correlation between the two-axes of the collage activity, indicating that perceived sustainability and likeability can be measured separately. In addition, we found that product perceptions across sustainability aspects may differ between demographics. Based on these results, we confirm that the collage is an effective tool for validating sustainability perceptions and that features perceived as sustainable from online reviews resonate with customers when thinking of various sustainability aspects.


Author(s):  
Nasreddine El-Dehaibi ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Abstract In order for a sustainable product to be successful in the market, designers must create products that are not only sustainable in reality, but are also sustainable as perceived by the customer — and reality vs. perception of sustainability can be quite different. This paper details a design method to identify perceived sustainable features (PerSFs) by collecting online reviews, manually annotating them using crowd-sourced work, and processing the annotated review fragments with a Natural Language machine learning algorithm. We analyze all three pillars of sustainability — social, environmental, and economic — for positive and negative perceptions of product features of a French press coffee carafe. For social aspects, the results show that positive PerSFs are associated with intangible features, such as giving the product as a gift, while negative PerSFs are associated with tangible features perceived as unsafe, like sharp corners. For environmental aspects, positive PerSFs are associated with reliable materials like metal while negative PerSFs are associated with the use of plastic. For economic aspects, PerSFs mainly serve as a price constraint for designers to satisfy other customer perceptions. We also show that some crucial sustainability concerns related to environmental aspects, like energy and water consumption, did not have a significant impact on customer sentiment, thus demonstrating the anticipated gap in sustainability perceptions and the realities of sustainable design, as noted in previous literature. From these results, online reviews can enable designers to extract PerSFs for further design study and to create products that resonate with customers’ sustainable values.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasreddine El Dehaibi ◽  
Noah D. Goodman ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Abstract In order for a sustainable product to be successful in the market, designers must create products that are not only sustainable in reality but are also sustainable as perceived by the customer—and reality versus perception of sustainability can be quite different. This paper details a design method to identify perceptions of sustainable features (PerSFs) by collecting online reviews, manually annotating them using crowdsourced work, and processing the annotated review fragments with a natural language machine learning algorithm. We analyze all three pillars of sustainability—social, environmental, and economic—for positive and negative perceptions of product features of a French press coffee carafe. For social aspects, the results show that positive PerSFs are associated with intangible features, such as giving the product as a gift, while negative PerSFs are associated with tangible features perceived as unsafe, like sharp corners. For environmental aspects, positive PerSFs are associated with reliable materials like metal while negative PerSFs are associated with the use of plastic. For economic aspects, PerSFs mainly serve as a price constraint for designers to satisfy other customer perceptions. We also show that some crucial sustainability concerns related to environmental aspects, like energy and water consumption, did not have a significant impact on customer sentiment, thus demonstrating the anticipated gap in sustainability perceptions and the realities of sustainable design, as noted in previous literature. From these results, online reviews can enable designers to extract PerSFs for further design study and to create products that resonate with customers' sustainable values.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-165
Author(s):  
Manik Sharma ◽  
Gurvinder Singh ◽  
Rajinder Singh

Background: For almost every domain, a tremendous degree of data is accessible in an online and offline mode. Billions of users are daily posting their views or opinions by using different online applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Instagram etc. Objective: These reviews are constructive for the progress of the venture, civilization, state and even nation. However, this momentous amount of information is useful only if it is collectively and effectively mined. Methodology: Opinion mining is used to extract the thoughts, expression, emotions, critics, appraisal from the data posted by different persons. It is one of the prevailing research techniques that coalesce and employ the features from natural language processing. Here, an amalgamated approach has been employed to mine online reviews. Results: To improve the results of genetic algorithm based opining mining patent, here, a hybrid genetic algorithm and ontology based 3-tier natural language processing framework named GAO_NLP_OM has been designed. First tier is used for preprocessing and corrosion of the sentences. Middle tier is composed of genetic algorithm based searching module, ontology for English sentences, base words for the review, complete set of English words with item and their features. Genetic algorithm is used to expedite the polarity mining process. The last tier is liable for semantic, discourse and feature summarization. Furthermore, the use of ontology assists in progressing more accurate opinion mining model. Conclusion: GAO_NLP_OM is supposed to improve the performance of genetic algorithm based opinion mining patent. The amalgamation of genetic algorithm, ontology and natural language processing seems to produce fast and more precise results. The proposed framework is able to mine simple as well as compound sentences. However, affirmative preceded interrogative, hidden feature and mixed language sentences still be a challenge for the proposed framework.


2020 ◽  
Vol Publish Ahead of Print ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. G. Langerhuizen ◽  
Laura E. Brown ◽  
Job N. Doornberg ◽  
David Ring ◽  
Gino M. M. J. Kerkhoffs ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Celuch

PurposeIn search of creating an extraordinary experience for customers, services have gone beyond the means of a transaction between buyers and sellers. In the event industry, where purchasing tickets online is a common procedure, it remains unclear as to how to enhance the multifaceted experience. This study aims at offering a snapshot into the most valued aspects for consumers and to uncover consumers' feelings toward their experience of purchasing event tickets on third-party ticketing platforms.Design/methodology/approachThis is a cross-disciplinary study that applies knowledge from both data science and services marketing. Under the guise of natural language processing, latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling and sentiment analysis were used to interpret the embedded meanings based on online reviews.FindingsThe findings conceptualized ten dimensions valued by eventgoers, including technical issues, value of core product and service, word-of-mouth, trustworthiness, professionalism and knowledgeability, customer support, information transparency, additional fee, prior experience and after-sales service. Among these aspects, consumers rated the value of the core product and service to be the most positive experience, whereas the additional fee was considered the least positive one.Originality/valueDrawing from the intersection of natural language processing and the status quo of the event industry, this study offers a better understanding of eventgoers' experiences in the case of purchasing online event tickets. It also provides a hands-on guide for marketers to stage memorable experiences in the era of digitalization.


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