Entwicklung einer Methode zur Erhebung von kundenseitigen Produktanforderungen angewandt im Kontext des autonomen Fahrens

• Development of a method collecting customer requirements applied in the context of autonomous driving

Kratschmayr, Melissa Lee; Schwalm, Maximilian (Thesis advisor); Müsseler, Jochen (Thesis advisor)

Aachen : RWTH Aachen University (2020, 2021)
Dissertation / PhD Thesis

Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2020

Abstract

The biggest challenge of integrating customers into the product development process lies with the customer himself. Cognitive biases such as functional fixedness mean that customers are only partially able to articulate their latent needs in surveys. Current methods understand the challenge and offer promising solutions, but they continue to be criticized regarding for example their subjectiveness or lack of structure. The reliable identification of customer needs and integration of these in the development of innovative technologies such as autonomous driving is particularly crucial. The Holistic Experience Centred (HEC)-method developed in the present research offers an approach to systematically and objectively capture customer needs and incorporate them into the further course of product development. It was applied in the context of autonomous driving and there identified 16 relevant customer needs. These were fed into the development of a mobile application (app) which was compared with an existing app, that had been developed using other product development methods. In a usability study both were examined with regard to their user experience aiming at a first investigation of the applicability of the HEC-method. Significant results were achieved which prove that the HEC-method had identified relevant customer needs and that the integration of these into the development process had led to the development of a product that is subsequently preferred by customers.