M. Vriens et al., VERBAL VERSUS REALISTIC PICTORIAL REPRESENTATIONS IN CONJOINT-ANALYSIS WITH DESIGN ATTRIBUTES, The Journal of product innovation management, 15(5), 1998, pp. 455-467
The current generation of high-powered graphics software offers an eff
ective means for presenting product designs. Armed with the right tool
s for generating photorealistic representations of alternative designs
, product development teams can obtain useful consumer input about pro
duct design attributes. However, generating computer-based models carr
ies greater costs than producing verbal representations (written, key-
word descriptions).(1) If a verbal representation can effectively comm
unicate the relevant design and styling attributes, can product develo
pers justify the costs associated with generating a computer-based mod
el? Marco Vriens, Gerard H Loosschilder, Edward Rosbergen, and Dick R.
Wittink highlight a fundamental question in the choice between verbal
and pictorial representations(2): Does the type of representation use
d affect the nature and the quality of the results that product develo
pers obtain? Specifically, does the type of representation used in a s
tudy affect the information that the study provides about market segme
ntation and the relative importance of different design attributes? An
d does the choice of representation type affect a study's reliability
and predictive accuracy? To address these questions, the authors condu
cted a study with a European subsidiary of a Japanese manufacturer of
car stereo equipment. The study involves the selection of product desi
gns from those made available by the manufacturer Respondents were ask
ed to evaluate both verbal representations and photorealistic pictoria
l representations of proposed car stereo designs. Half the respondents
evaluated the verbal representations first, while the other half rate
d the pictorial representations first. In this study, the pictorial re
presentations produced higher relative importance ratings for two of t
he three design attributes, as well as somewhat greater heterogeneity
(that is, segmentation) among respondents. However, the verbal represe
ntations produced greater predictive accuracy, especially for responde
nts who rated the verbal descriptions after they had evaluated the pic
torial representations. These results suggest that the pictorial repre
sentations improved the respondents' understanding of the design attri
butes, while the verbal representations seem to facilitate judgment. (
C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.