| Summary: | 碩士 === 華梵大學 === 工業設計學系碩士班 === 104 === The population of coffee drinkers has continued to increase during the last few years and drinking coffee has become a popular lifestyle choice for the younger generation. Moreover, the annual production value of the coffee market in Taiwan has reached up to NT$ 70 billion. Many consumers are willing to use a travel mug for take-away coffee service as both an environmental awareness consideration and a discount attraction. As a result, the travel mug has become one of the most potentially popular products among a series of coffee-related accessories. Therefore, it is an essential issue to study the form and image design of travel mugs in order to understand consumers’ purchase demands as this is also a key marketing strategy to create success in the future.
This research applied a web-based 2-dimensional analytical tool to investigate consumers’ purchasing preferences in travel mugs. The tested samples were grouped based on both their average scores of barycentric(BrE) coordinates and appearance of the products to conduct a series of pilot studies in marketing preference, form and image preference and quantification theory type I morphological analysis. The author developed three new design concepts for travel mugs based on the results of these pilot studies.
Eight samples were selected to conduct a further marketing preference study as primary research which included three new design concepts generated from the pilot studies and five main competitive products in the market. Subsequently, the these three new design concepts were expanded to nine ideas, as each new concept was presented in three different color schemes as red, blue and gray. An investigation of the impact of color with the aim of evaluating the demand for different colors and the marketing competitiveness of the new concepts was undertaken for both designers and sales personnel.
The pilot studies identified the design guidelines of this project as follows: Firstly, the consumers’ preferences in travel mugs including (1) straight cup body shape, (2) button-style lid, (3) lip-shaped drinking part and (4) stainless steel material. Secondly, the preferred form and image semantics are ‘conservative’, ‘simple and natural with delicate emotion’, ‘elegant and stylish’ and ‘meticulous’. Thirdly, the customers prefer silver and gray color schemes and they favor the travel mug with anti-slip function.
The author generated three new design concepts based on the above principles and the primary research results confirmed that three ideas were all favored by participants with great potential in the market, especially design concepts A and B which were highly recommended by them. Meanwhile, the results price analysis presented the prices of new designs which were affordable and highly accepted by potential customers. The outcomes of the color preference study showed that concept A-Red, concept A-Blue, concept B-Blue and concept B-Gray were the most popular among the participants. Moreover, concept A-Red and concept-Blue had a highly attractive appearance and three color schemes in red, blue and gray for three new ideas were all favored by the contributors, particularly concept A-Red and concept A-Blue.
The main contribution of this research is in creating a model for the design and development of travel mugs by applying a web-based 2-dimensional analytical tool which could provide a good guideline for peers or manufacturers interested in designing and developing new travel mugs in the future.
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