Proposal, application and validation of an assisting method on identifying critical latent needs

Abstract

In designing process, it is important to understand latent needs and reflect them in product functionality, but there is a lack of support methods to obtain latent needs from consumer needs. In this study, we proposed, applied and validated the application of a method to identify important and critical latent needs from a vast amount of needs by eliciting them from the three perspectives of potentiality (latentness), importance, and feasibility. The consumers’ responses were first translated into interpreted needs. Then, Degree of Latent Needs (DLN) was calculated by multiplying latentness, importance, and feasibility. From the results, we were able to say that DLN will be able to be used as supporting tools in discovering critical latent needs.