ANALYSIS OF PROTOTYPE FIDELITY AND ITEMS RELATED TO CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO ENGAGE IN CO-DESIGN IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

抄録

Prototypes serve as crucial communication tools for engaging customers in new product co-design. The level of prototype fidelity can affect customer willingness to participate in co-design. Our study aims to explore this by examining how different prototype fidelity levels affect customer willingness and intrinsic motivation for co-design participation. We conducted a quantitative analysis, presenting low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes of disaster prevention digital ideas to 1,857 respondents via a web survey and asking them to respond. Our findings revealed that the willingness to participate in co-design was significantly higher for low-fidelity prototypes with no detailed colors or appearances, but with detailed features than for high-fidelity prototypes with detailed colors, appearances, and features. We also examined how customer expertise and personality traits affect willingness to participate at different fidelity levels and found that conscientiousness and intellect/open experience of personality may have different effects on willingness to participate in co-design depending on fidelity.