The Role of Kansei Engineering and View in the Future

Abstract

The twentieth century was what we call a machine-centered century. The twenty-first century is a human-centered century in every respect, with scientific technologies that are friendly to humans and the natural and social environments of humans being valued. Therefore, research, development, and deployment of advanced scientific technologies may no longer be determined solely by technological communities, and issues whose solutions have been carried over to the twenty-first century may not be solved by the technologies of only one specific field. For example, tie-ups and cooperation with human and social scientists are greatly needed, since the issues can no longer be solved by the scientific efforts of research and development alone. It is no exaggeration to say that such issues today affect all aspects of social technologies. Therefore, these issues can no longer be solved by conventional solutions. Matured technologies that have brought happiness to humans are among interdisciplinary scientific areas, and the mounting issues to be solved in the twenty-first century cannot be fully understood by conventional technological frameworks; the nature of scientific technology issues that we need to understand is obviously changing. Research focused on Kansei is expected to be the solution to these issues with the greatest potential. Meanwhile, it is only recently that interest in Kansei values has rapidly heightened as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry launched the "Kansei Value Creation Initiative." However, it is true that we have many issues to solve including the development of new viewpoints in defining the universal characteristics of Kansei values, detailed guidelines for future research, etc. Kansei engineering originally evolved as a way to "introduce human 'Kansei' into manufacturing." The recent trend indicates that the development of Kansei engineering is expanding beyond manufacture and design and is widening into relevant fields, creating one of the most conspicuous features of Kansei engineering. This trend can also be felt by presentations made at the recent annual conferences of the Japan Society of Kansei Engineering. It is needless to say, therefore, that some kind of interdisciplinary development is necessary to find a mechanism for creating Kansei values, which is as important as the Kansei values themselves. The first part of this paper describes the general history of Kansei and the basic stance and concept of Kansei research. The second discusses the significance and roles of creating Kansei values in Kansei engineering and also provides basic ideas that will serve as future guidelines, with its positioning in mind debating from many aspects. The third part of this paper shows that the concept of Kansei/Affective value creation is an essential tool for the decision making, for example, in the field of marketing. It is shown that the Kansei/Affective information provides an important role for the decision making. Some illustrative examples are shown to demonstrate the effect of Kansei information. And, finally, the paper will provide a summary of KEER2010 held in Paris in March 2010 to describe the world trend of Kansei engineering research.