J PROD INNOV MANAG 341
1993; 10:341-347
0000
FROM EXPERIENCE:
Consumer Idealized Design: Involving Consumers in the Product
Development Process
Susan Ciccantelli and Jason Magidson
A considerable portion of the growing body of
literature devoted to the design process deals with the
roles of internal marketing, production, and research
and development teams and their interaction. Such
design methodologies could be greatly enhanced by
focusing more attention on understanding consumer
needs and behavior, especially in the initial stages of
product development. Susan Ciccantelli and Jason
Magidson describe Consumer Idealized Design, a
process for involving consumers in the actual design of
a new manufactured good or service. They summarize
three case studies involving the application of the
process.
Address correspondence to: Susan Ciccantelli, INTERACT, The
Institute for Interactive Management, 401 City Avenue, Suite 525, Bala
Cynwyd, PA 19004.
Russell Ackoff is Emeritus Professor at the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania and one of the founding partners of INTER-
ACT: The Institute for Interactive Management, Bala Cynwyd, PA.
© 1993 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
Introduction
A product or service is designed effectively if it
provides consumers with what they want, rather than
merely remove what they do not want. But determin-
ing what consumers need or will want is an effort that
does not often meet with success. In fact, suppliers'
beliefs about consumers' wants have led to more
product failures than successes. The main reason for
this is not hard to understand: Consumers' needs and
desires are elusive because consumers themselves
generally have not consciously formulated what they
are or how to fulfill them.
Even when consumers are aware of what they want
and are willing to reveal it, their wants are likely to be
conditioned by what is available. And when the
product or service available is basically unsatisfying to
them, they are unlikely to reveal startling new desires
or concepts. At best, the typical ways in which
consumers are involved in product design focus
groups, surveys, and questionnaires--tend to elicit
mostly information about what they do not want, rather
than startling new insights about what they really want
or need. This is due in part to the fact that people often
attempt to provide answers that they think the inquirer
wants, rather than probe for their own preferences.
So the search continues, and product developers
continue to seek ways to help consumers (1) become
more aware of what they need or want, and (2) reveal
these wants as accurately as possible.
One such way, developed by Russell L. Ackoff, l is
a process called Consumer Idealized Design (Con-
sumer Design).
0737-6782/93/$6.00
342 J PROD INNOV MANAG
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B I O G R A P H I C A L SKETCHES
Susan Ciccantelli is an independent researcher. As an Associate
Member of INTERACT, The Institute for Interactive Management,
her work has involved new product research and development
processes for several Fortune 500 companies. Before joining
INTERACT Ms. Ciccantelli worked as a systems consultant with
the Mitchell Group in Los Angeles, where she was involved in the
planning and design of a series of innovative multimedia arts
programs and planned and executed the planning, selection, and
installation of automated systems for the organization's micro-
based computer systems. In addition, she served as a Project
Manager for five years at First Pennsylvania Bank, doing research,
design, planning, and implementation of large, multiuser systems,
where she specialized in user-interface design. Ms. Ciccantelli
began her career in publishing. She holds a Bachelor's degree from
Bryn Mawr College, and was a doctoral candidate in the Department
of Social Systems Sciences at The Wharton School.
Jason Magidson is a Project Manager at INTERACT and has
worked with large and small corporations, assisting them in
planning, research, and organization design efforts. Major emphases
in his work include consumer and employee involvement in
planning and design of products, services, and organizational
structure and strategy; quality of worklife programs; creation of
shared vision and cooperation among members of teams; programs
to increase the responsiveness of organizations to consumer and
community needs and desires; and programs to promote realization
of organizational missions. Mr. Magidson received his Bachelor of
Science from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylva-
nia, and is a candidate for a doctorate jointly offered by the Union
Institute and INTERACT.
Consumer Idealized Design
Consumer design involves actual or potential consum-
ers in an unconstrained design of their ideal product or
service.
In consumer design, participants are told not to be
concerned with the feasibility of the designs they
create, only with their desirability. They are also
encouraged to specify ways in which the product might
be made flexible enough to accommodate changes in
consumers' needs. In proposing the design, consumer
participants are free of all constraints except two:
1. The product or service cannot involve any technol-
ogy that does not currently exist. For example, a
participant could say that she wants publicly
available drive-it-yourself taxis that are coin-
operated, because the technology exists to construct
them. On the other hand, she cannot say that she
wants an automobile fueled with water, since this is
not possible using current (proven) technology.
In some cases, knowing whether technology exists to
realize consumers' designs may be difficult to assess.
S. CICCANTELLI AND J. MAGIDSON
However, we have found that the collective knowledge
of a group is generally sufficient to make decisions
regarding the inclusion of uncertain technological
capabilities.
2. The product or service must conform to the law.
This constraint extends to any rules or regulations
imposed by the government that limit the use of the
product or service. For example, one cannot design
an automobile that emits a poisonous gas.
Consumer design starts from the ground up and
ignores feasibility in the early stages of the design
process. This is because it is based on the belief that
the principal obstruction to creativity is a preoccupa-
tion with feasibility, a condition that is usually
associated with self-imposed (rather than actual)
constraints.
Consumer design assumes that, given the proper
tools and facilitation, average consumers are often best
equipped to design--from a functional standpoint--
those products and services that are required for
situations with which they have become familiar. It is
this input from consumers early on in the product
development process that differentiates consumer
design sessions from traditional focus groups and
surveys. (See Figure 1.)
How Consumer Design Works
Consumer design is similar to a focus group in some
general ways:
1. A small group is selected from a segment of the
market that the product developer has chosen to
target.
2. The process takes place in a large conference room.
3. The event can be either taped or viewed behind
one-way mirrors.
At this point, the similarities end. Unlike focus groups,
which are usually completed in less than three hours,
consumer design sessions generally require an entire
day. Participants are usually not required to prepare in
any way for the session. However, discussion by the
client organization should provide an accurate descrip-
tion of the characteristics of ideal participants. It may
be desirable to have prospective participants complete
a questionnaire before the session, to ensure that
participants meet the client's profile of the ideal
consumer of their forthcoming product or service.
CONSUMERIDEALIZED
DESIGN
DECISION
TO DEVELOP
NEW PRODUCT
CONSUMER D E S l G N ~ TRADITIONAL
CONSUMER STORMING
\ / BY PRODUCT
DESIGN
SESSIONS
~ DEVELOPERS
PRODUCT CONCEPT DEFINED
CONDUCT FOCUS GROUPS & SURVEYS IN TARGET MARKETS
DEVELOP,DESIGN, AND MANUFACTURE PROTOTYPE
L about existing products or services, the facilitator
MODIFY PRODUCT IDEA BASED ON FOCUS GROUPS & SURVEYS
1 for the purposes of this session these no longer exist
MARKET TEST PROTOTYPE
t designing what they would like if they could have
MODIFY PROTOTYPE BASED ON MARKET TEST
FINISHED PRODUCT/SERVICE GOES TO MARKET
Figure 1. Consumer design involves end-users early on in the
product development process.
Assisted by a facilitator--someone who guides but
does not provide content to the session--the partici-
pants are asked to imagine that an existing product or
service with which they are familiar was destroyed
overnight, and that they are going to have the
opportunity to create something totally new in its
place. They then engage in a brainstorming session to
prepare a basic list of specifications for the ideal
product or service to be designed. Specifications can
include any feature desired by the participants, no
matter how outrageous, as well as standard characteris-
tics such as color, weight, function, size, speed, shape,
availability, cost, and so on.
The facilitator records all suggestions and proposals
on a large flipchart so that everyone present can see
them. At this stage, all specifications are recorded,
even those that may be in conflict with each other. The
entire group then debates the merits of each point
raised and finally arrives at some decisions regarding
JPRODINNOVMANAG 343
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the ideal. In sessions of over six people, participants
then break into smaller groups to plan designs that will
incorporate as many of the specifications as possible.
This generally takes between one and two hours. The
entire group is then reassembled to present their
designs and discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of each. After this discussion, the smaller groups
reconvene to refine and change their designs, incorpo-
rating the ideas presented by the other group(s) as
desired. This process is repeated as many times as
possible until the end of the day, with the goal being to
arrive at one design that incorporates all of the
participants' idealizations.
If a facilitator is skillful, it seldom takes more than
three iterations to reach a consensus on a consumer
idealized design (i.e., all participants feel the end
product is better than anything else currently availa-
ble). In our experience, several skills contribute to
success. First, if the participants refer to or complain
should immediately break in and remind the group that
and they should stay focused on the objective of
anything they wanted. Second, when disagreements
arise, the facilitator can handle them in several ways.
In some cases, the facilitator can ask the group to
assess the importance of the disagreement and con-
sider whether they should set it aside for discussion
later, so that progress can be made in other areas.
Where agreement cannot be reached, the facilitator
should suggest an experiment or other research by
which the better approach can be determined in
practice (e.g., manufacture two types of roofing
materials that consumers disagree on, offer them for
sale, and see whether one sells better than the other).
This is a resolution approach to which people often
unanimously agree.
A third skill that contributes to a successful design
effort is remembering to probe, when design specifi-
cations are contributed, by asking the question
" W h y ? " . This can help eliminate redundancy in the
final design, but, more importantly, it forces the
designers to articulate desires that are often not known
to producers.
Finally, facilitators of a successful design effort
should guide participants toward their ideal and away
from what they perceive as obstructions. In this
respect, the objection which is most often raised in the
group design effort is cost.
 344 J PROD INNOV MANAG
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Interactive Design Versus Reactive "Focus"
A consumer design session is characterized by at least
three features that distinguish it from a focus group.
1. It requires innovation and interaction from partici-
pants.
2. It is task-oriented, competitive and consensus-
generating.
3. It requires the articulation and design of the group's
notion of the ideal in a designated product or
service category.
Innovation
Focus groups generally begin and end with the product
developers' concept for a new or improved product or
service. Conversely, a consumer design session begins
with a blank slate. When consumer design is success-
ful, the end result is a design that represents not only
previously unarticulated needs and wants of the
participants, but a record for the product developer of
the underlying reasons for those design decisions.
For example, in a design of the ideal men's clothing
store, participants--who had been selected from the
store owner's targeted customer group--arranged
different articles of similar types of clothing by size,
rather than by type. In their scheme, all available styles
of suit jackets, sport jackets, vests, shirts, and
outerwear for the upper body were grouped together by
size. The reason given was that the consumer designers
did not like hunting all over the store to retrieve these
different articles. Armed with this new understanding
of their preferred customer group, the store's owners
identified alternate ways to address this need: having a
salesperson select the desired articles in the appropri-
ate sizes for VIP customers, and maintaining records of
customers' clothing and size requirements.
Task-Orientation, Competition, and Consensus
As anyone who has led or participated in a focus group
knows, these groups can easily degenerate into "beef
sessions." In some cases the group will become
polarized, or launch an all-out attack upon the product
idea being introduced. A consumer design session
eliminates this possibility since the group is itself
responsible for producing answers to the challenge
posed by a particular product or service need.
For example, in the design of an ideal service
station, one group designed a full-service facility,
S. CICCANTELLI AND J. MAGIDSON
while another wanted a drive-up geared to speed and
convenience. Their solution: a fast, fully automated,
express lane which could be either conveniently
located near the exit of a full-service station, or placed
in a smaller location as stand-alone (or "micro-")
station. These units would utilize a credit or debit card
and personal ID code, thereby eliminating the need to
leave the pump area. They would also provide an
option similar to an automated teller machine's "Fast
Cash" service, and allow consumers to select $2, $5,
$10, or $20 worth of gas with a single entry.
The "combination design" was further refined by
the group at large to be adapted for both urban and
highway uses.
Even in those cases in which consensus is not
reached, information is revealed in disagreements that
may be useful to the product or service provider.
Generally, such situations suggest the desirability of
providing options or conducting further research to
determine what is preferred by the majority of a target
market. Repeated attempts to meet all of the group
members' desired specifications often raise new
questions and issues, requiring revamped decisions
and subsequent discussion. In addition, consensus
provides the consumer design process with direction; it
also----in conjunction with the time constraint--pushes
participants to come up with imaginative solutions.
Designing the Ideal
Consumer design offers participants a chance to
become the designer. As such it places them in a
position of power, if only temporarily and hypotheti-
cally. At the same time, they are faced with the
challenge of getting to the heart of what it is that they
really want. For example, the customers of an urban
neighborhood grocery store and outdoor caf6 were
quick to trade off the occasional noisiness of people
and music during the summer months for the security
provided along the block by the store's late-night
activity and lighting.
A producer's notion of the ideal is generally very
different from his customer's. In the case of the new
software product (described below), consumer partici-
pants unanimously rejected the (sponsor's) idea of a
hand-held tracking device. In addition, prior to this, the
group had agreed that the best system of all would
involve no software or hardware at all, just a trusted
friend or relative who would take all responsibility for
tracking household expenses. This ideal set the
priorities in the minds of the sponsor: the product
CONSUMER IDEALIZEDDESIGN
would need to be simple, straightforward, and require
as little interaction with technology as possible.
Consumer design is similar to focus groups in that it
does not attempt to deliver finished product designs.
But unlike focus groups, the output of consumer
design sessions is treated as a point of departure for the
remainder of the product development process. This is
because effective consumer designs should give
product and service providers information about what
consumers want, and, even more importantly, they
should increase their understanding of why they want
what they want.
Consumer D e s i g n O u t c o m e s
Consumer design sessions have been conducted for a
wide variety of businesses: a major oil company; a
major manufacturer of roofing materials; a large
supermarket chain; neighborhood grocery stores; a
men's clothing retail chain; a computer software
company; insurance and banking companies; health
care facilities; and national food producers. Three of
these experiences are summarized here. 2
The Ideal Roof
A major producer and marketer of asphalt roofing
shingles had a larger line of roofing materials than its
major competitor, but one of the competitor's products
dominated the market. Previous efforts to cut into the
competitor's market share had met with little or no
success. Consumer Design was selected as a way to
explore potential new products that could take some of
the dominant product's share.
One of the first facts recognized was that there are
many participants in the decision to buy a particular
style of roofing shingle: homeowners, architects, roofing
contractors, material distributors, and retailers. But the
answer to the question "Who makes the buying
decision?" is important only if the different participants
have different preferences. With this in mind the
company set out to determine which type of roof designs
and styles each type of participant preferred.
To accomplish this, small groups of each type of
buyer were brought to a specially prepared room where
they were asked to design their notion of the ideal roof.
2 These summaries are based on interventions designed and conducted
by Alan Barstow, Susan Ciccantelli, Ali Geranmayeh, John Pourdehnad,
and Don Wilson.
J PROD INNOV MANAG 345
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They worked on 3' x 4' wood panels, and used a wide
variety of components, textures, colors, and so on.
Components were prepared in such a way that the
designs need not resemble any existing type of roofing.
Each participant prepared several designs. When each
group had completed its design, they were asked to
review each others' creations, those of previous
groups, and also a selection of roofs available on the
market at that time.
The effort produced a total of 120 different designs,
prepared by nine different groups over the course of
several weeks. The designs were analyzed and catego-
rized according to twenty variables. The findings
deemed most useful by the client were as follows:
1. Asphalt roofing materials do not have to be made to
resemble slate, wood shingles, or clay tiles to be
considered attractive.
2. The narrow cut-outs--spaces that separate tabs on
conventional shingles--are considered unattrac-
tive.
3. Homeowners showed a preference for roofing that
appears three-dimensional.
4. All participant groups except roofing contractors
showed a preference for strong patterning and
regularity. The contractors find such designs diffi-
cult to install.
5. In general, homeowners' and architects' designs
were much more exotic than the conventional
designs produced by contractors who install roofs
and material distributors who sell roofing products.
Several of the designs produced by customers and the
analysis were subsequently used to modify the client's
product line.
The Ideal Service Station
Two groups of consumers---one composed entirely of
men and the other of w o m e n - - w e r e recruited to design
the ideal service station. In general, both groups
revealed a desire for more choices: a variety of service
facilities, product options, and auxiliary services. The
groups acknowledged early on in the process that auto
service needs varied in a number of ways: long or short
trips; planned versus unplanned service; an urban or a
highway setting; and the desire for personalized or
completely automated service. Two representatives of
the sponsoring organization (a major oil company)
took part incognito in two day-long sessions.
Some interesting differences emerged between the
final designs produced by the two groups. Women
346 J PROD INNOV MANAG
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wanted the station to be a source of reliable,
straightforward information covering all elements of
what they referred to as "the total driving experi-
ence." This included background, training, and refer-
ences for their car mechanics; information about fuel
sources and composition; and information about
insurance and maintenance options. They also ex-
pected businesses to show some concern for the local
community. Finally, women's designs addressed the
special needs of children and the handicapped by
including things such as changing tables in restrooms
and wheelchair access.
Both men and women redesigned the pumps and
nozzles to make them easier use and store. Other
design features common to both were:
• a selection of major brands available at every
pump;
• a fast, fully automated express lane which could
be conveniently located and adapted either as a
stand-alone "micro-station" or as part of the
super station design for both urban and highway
use;
• a commuter lot/station with "disposable" cars;
and
• an emphasis on service--respect for and atten-
tion to the customer ("like McDonald's"); and
• a system for servicing cars when they are not
being used.
Both groups produced their own detailed drawings of
what the stations would look like, including landscap-
ing, lighting, and clearly marked approaches and
exits.
The Ideal Financial Software Product
Two sessions, involving different groups of people,
were held to have participants design financial-
planning software for household use. The goal was a
new product that would appeal to a market segment
different from the company's existing (successful)
financial-planning software product. The existing
product had its largest market among persons with a
relatively high level of financial sophistication. The
new product was intended to cultivate a new, less
sophisticated customer base, many of whom would
then "graduate" to become users of the existing
product.
S. CICCANTELLI AND J. MAGIDSON
Participants were asked to supply information about
themselves, including household income and esti-
mated home value. They were also asked to rate
themselves on a scale of one to ten in two areas: (1)
their knowledge and understanding of investments;
and (2) the amount of control they felt they had over
their money.
In the first session, participants were asked to
imagine an ideal setup which would help them track
their personal finances. At this point, the sponsors had
a preconceived notion of the new product which
incorporated a small, hand-held device (similar to a
pocket calculator) for tracking daily expenditures. This
device would then plug into a personal computer,
where a modular system of software programs would
organize, integrate, and analyze the data. They
participated in this first session incognito.
What happened during the first session caused the
sponsors to completely revise their ideas. Participants
revealed that they would like better organization and
control of their finances, but that they were unwilling
to use a hand-held tracking device, no matter how
small or "cute." They also did not want any of the
"extra work" required to organize their finances.
Instead, they wanted a simplified "snapshot" of their
total financial situation, as well as graphic representa-
tions delineating what they spent in certain categories.
Other specifications were that the proposed system
include some type of imposed discipline on their
spending, and the ability to see progress toward stated
financial goals.
The first session convinced the sponsors that the
product would have to be aimed at households and
individuals who regularly experience cash-flow prob-
lems. To design software aimed at such a group, a
second session was organized with a different set of
participants. This group produced a complete set of
requirements for the new product. These included
• ease of use;
graphics to show what today's dollars today will
be worth at retirement;
savings plans for acquiring major purchases;
tax implications; and
a variety of other consumer information sources,
such as credit card rates, travel options, vacation
packages, and housing costs in different parts of
the country.
CONSUMER IDEALIZED DESIGN
In addition, extensive specifications were provided for
system outputs, such as monthly, quarterly, and annual
(printed) reports; balance-sheets, household budgets,
and long-term "snapshots." Participants decided that
the system should be geared to low-end hardware
(costing under $1000), and compatible with existing
popular word-processing and spreadsheet programs.
Such a package, they said, should assist individuals
who purchased it by "demystifying the chaotic blur"
of financial imperatives and options. Finally, the
participants said that they would pay between $40 and
$60 for the product.
Conclusion
Many in upper- and middle-management know that in
today's complex industrial relationships, with many
middlemen, organizations can be very distanced from
their ultimate consumers, and they realize that this
distance makes it easy to miss the big picture.
Involving consumers in designing products and serv-
ices can put the organization back in touch with its
consumers and infuse fresh ideas.
However, customer involvement often has not
produced the expected results. Six principles have
come out of examination of successful and failed
efforts. Companies should
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1993; 10:341-347
1. get consumers involved in product and service
development as early as possible and at all
subsequent stages;
2. encourage consumers to focus on what is wanted
rather than what is not wanted;
3. encourage consumers to think beyond what is
currently available by focusing on what they would
like ideally (starting from a clean slate);
4. get consumers to go beyond simply telling what
they would like by involving them in designing the
product or service;
5. encourage consumers not to worry about likelihood
of implementation (feasibility) but to be concerned
with desirability; and
6. probe for the reasons why consumers want what
they want.
We have discussed how consumer idealized design has
helped a number of companies in a variety of industries
improve performance by following the above principles.
Even companies that tried consumer idealized design,
although they felt confident in their existing marketing
strategy, have often been surprised at how much they
learned, how it affected their beliefs and practices, and
how this led to improved performance. In a world where
successful performance is increasingly a moving target,
companies would be wise to become partners with their
consumers in shaping it and pursuing it.