Research on Discussion of Gender Difference in Preference for Smart Watches Based on Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

摘要

As wearable devices have been intelligentized in recent years, many high-teach companies launch smart watches successively. These companies constantly upgrade shapes and functions of smart watches. However, market performances of some products are not up to the expected standard, since smart watches are in the leading-in period of product life cycle and the market demand remains unclear. Furthermore, because different consumer groups have different consumer psychologies and behaviors, they show various preferences for functions of smart watches. For instance, male group tends to be more rational and regular in consumer behaviors, while female group is more sensitive with active thinking and strong initiative in consumer behaviors. Moreover, female group prefers to pursue fashion and novelty, purchase some new products and try new life. As a result, how to locate developments of smart watches in light of needs of different users is an important research topic. According to the questionnaire data, this research adopts Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to explore the differences of consumer psychologies and behaviors of customers in product preferences, concluding the determinant attributes for attracting consumers to buy products. Compared with traditional Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), FAHP combines AHP and fuzzy theory. Ambiguous problem assessments must use the concept of fuzzy function in FAHP to calculate fuzzy weights. This research adopts questionnaire survey to handle research questions in hierarchical analyses. Similarity aggregation method is utilized to integrate opinions of research objects. Then, FAHP is used to figure out importance degrees of all hierarchies, analyzing the differences of the two groups in preferences for functions of smart watches. First of all, this research collects opinions of experts and experienced product designers through surveying users of smart watches. In addition, various kinds of evaluation criteria are selected. The representative five criteria and thirteen sub-criteria are arranged through classification. The five criteria are battery time, interaction, communication, security and APP development. The thirteen sub-criteria are voice, touch, physical, auxiliary communication, independent communication, waterproof, theftproof, time management, geographic information, intelligent life, sports health, sociality and battery time. After confirming the hierarchical structure established by five criteria and thirteen sub-criteria, this research adopts paired comparison method to design the questionnaire. Moreover, this research sets up paired matrix table of questionnaire data in accordance with the defined evaluation values of fuzzy linguistic. Besides, this research integrates opinions of research objects through similarity aggregation method, calculating fuzzy weights for obtaining eigenvectors and eigenvalues. Eventually, this research conducts criteria ranking of all data from assessment criteria and sub-criteria. That is how to infer the differences of different gender consumers in preferences for functions of smart watches. According to the methods and results of this research which can be aimed at different target populations, development strategies of smart watches are proposed respectively and recommendation of product function combination is presented in light of different target markets.