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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an approach to include the influence of design attributes (DA) into an early product development step. In general, the development of new products with market success is of high relevance for companies. Because of a relatively high-quality level in general, not the product quality itself but rather new issues as attributes with aesthetical values are becoming more and more important. However, the right consideration of these attributes is still one of the challenges.

The underlying investigation is based on an empirical data set resulting from a survey with motorcycles as research object. Motorcycles are a good example for a good with a certain relevance of DA for the buying decision of customers. The data collection and analysis will focus on a recommended presentation alternative of measuring perceptions and influences through customer evaluations, separating customer segments and identifying differences. Therefore, data analysis methods such as cluster analysis will be applied.

The findings are new for researchers from a theoretical and from a practical point of view. The results verify the use of pictorial stimulus presentation and emphasize the necessary integration of DA within the product development process.

Within the paper the usefulness of the consideration of design elements in case of gathering customer meanings is highlighted. Therefore, existing approaches of measuring design attribute influences and using pictorial instead of verbal descriptions of stimuli are adopted and enhanced through the use of additional information of the respondents.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach to measure and to evaluate product descriptors which have a high relevance from customers’ point of view. When developing new goods, i.e. products and services, decision makers have to include consumer evaluations within their decision-making process. These evaluations should analyze the product descriptors, which are really relevant from the customers’ point of view and which can be totally different from simple physical or technical attributes in the case of material goods. Besides these several types of product characteristics, the evaluations should consider external influencing factors like the involvement.

In this investigation, an empirical data set resulting from a complex technical product-related survey is used. The products analyzed are smartphones and can be seen as representative examples with both objective physical features and subjective design-related attributes. The data collection and analysis will focus on subjective attributes, identifying factors and separating customer segments, e.g. using cluster analysis. Additionally, the existence of influence factors such as the involvement of the customers will be tested.

The results show relevant differences from the customers’ point of view with regard to product descriptors which are different for every customer and hard to describe. The investigation leads to five different respondent groups. Additionally, other external (customer behavior-related) influence factors – especially the involvement – can be identified as relevant. The analyses point out that there is a need to analyze the customers on an individual level and to consider influencing factors.

The investigation illustrates consequences of the usage of customer individual subjective elements as product descriptors which are relevant from the customers’ viewpoint. The resulting insights are new for researchers from a theoretical and from a practical point of view. The results verify, among others, the needs to analyze the customers on an individual level and to consider external (customer behavior-related) influence factors.