An Affective Design System for Product Conceptualization via Sorting Technique and Kohonen Self-organizing Map

In this paper, a prototype system that focuses on affective design perspective for iterative product concept development is proposed and described. The prototype system, which emphasizes the solicitation of affective factors from both customers and designers, employs a sorting technique, i.e. picture sorts, for acquiring customer affect and a hierarchical structure for representing affective criteria or attributes in product conceptualization. As hierarchical structure alone contains qualitative and uncertain inherence, a self-organized algorithm known as Kohonen selforganizing map (SOM) neural network is employed to transform different customer affect in terms of customer requirements into a specific product concept. The performance of the prototype system is illustrated by using a case study on the design of a mobile hand phone.