Impact of Material Selection on Consumer Electronic Product Design

Volume 6 Issue 2 July - September 2018

Research Paper

Impact of Material Selection on Consumer Electronic Product Design

Tom Page*

*Associate Professor Design, Department of Product Design, Nottingham Trent University, England.

Page, T. (2018). Impact of Material Selection on Consumer Electronic Product Design. i-manager’s Journal on Material Science, 6(2), 8-21. https://doi.org/10.26634/jms.6.2.14330

Abstract

Material selection is a key part of the design process, but how well do designers consider materials when making design decisions? This study looks at how these design decisions impact the consumer's interaction and how designers can use materials to increase the consumer's perception of the success of a product. A questionnaire has been carried out with designers to understand what material selection tools they currently use and how they see the materials they select impacting the consumer. Once these questionnaires had been analysed, further interviews were carried out with the participants to validate the data already collected and gain a greater understanding. The results show that although designers are well aware of the importance of material selection and how these selections impact the consumer, it is not necessarily their priority when it comes to selecting materials. It was established that selecting material to please the consumer and increase consumption was of importance.