The impact of design for consumers in the food and beverage industry : design value and measurement

• Main Author: Nam, Ki Woong
• Other Authors: Carnie, Bruce ; Cassidy, Thomas ; Bromilow, David
• Published: University of Leeds 2016
• Subjects: 745.4
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686474

How can one justify the investment in design? By considering the relatively frequent modifications of design aspects in the service industry, the significance of justifying design investment should be addressed. In order to be a successful service business, it is critical to manage the design resources and report the outcome appropriately. Given that the main contribution of design can be the role of adding value, this study attempted to interpret the impact of design through the concept of value. Among various value theories, this study determined to utilise Holbrook’s typology of consumer value for embedding design perspectives. Holbrook’s value typology is an emotional-based holistic understanding of value which can apprehend the root causes of the preference from the customer perspective. In this context, the application of Holbrook’s value typology can contribute to the in-depth understanding of design and be extended to the other stakeholders within a business in order to understand a service business holistically for the future study. However, the greater value for a consumer is arguably not sufficient to argue the importance of design for a business. If design contributes to the greater value, value created by design activities should lead to the greater outcomes of key business phases (such as greater customer satisfaction and loyalty). This study employed statistical approaches to confirm the positive impacts of design upon key business phases quantitatively. As a result, the key findings and contributions of this study are: (1) proposing Design Value Typology which enables a better understanding of design value from customers’ emotional causes, and (2) confirming the positive influence of design to the key business phases (in other words, the investigation about a company’s efforts for improving design elements and principles can enhance the performance of the company).