An investigation into affective design using sorting technique and Kohonen self-organising 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 emphasises the solicitation of affective attributes from customers, employs a sorting technique, i.e. picture sorts, for acquiring customer's affective requirements and a hierarchical structure for representing designer's formal elements to meet customer's affective requirements in product conceptualisation. As hierarchical structure alone contains qualitative and uncertain inherence, a self-organised algorithm known as Kohonen self-organising map (SOM) neural network is employed to consolidate the relationship between affective requirements from customers and formal elements from designers so as to formulate a customer-oriented product concept. The performance of the prototype system is illustrated by using a case study on the design of a mobile hand phone.