Reducing product rejection via a high contrast consumer test

摘要

Product rejection of a new innovative product is one of the major uncertainties for high volume consumer companies. It is well known that some of the field failures are consequences of unexpected consumer behavior [Brombacher (1999)]. Conventional in house tests, during product development have not been able to fully prevent product rejections. This paper describes a new consumer testing concept called the high contrast consumer test, which tries to deal with unexpected consumer behavior. This new consumer testing concept was attempted in a company that developed an innovative domestic iron. The results showed that this concept for this particular company was able to highlight consumer issues and therefore design issues that the company's conventional tests could not show.