Can the developer be the user? A possible explanation for the increasing number of customer complaints in consumer electronics

Different business trends within consumer electronics industry have resulted in an increasing number of customer complaints in the after-market. Research into this increasing number by Den Ouden indicates that 85% of the complaints can be traced back to decisions made in the product creation process (2006). Considering the increasing number of failures in high-volume consumer electronics, this paper is concerned with investigating current business practice with respect to the product improvement decisions in the NPD process. This process is investigated by performing a case study at a consumer electronics company. Subsequently, the effectiveness of this product improvement decision process is evaluated in a consumer experiment. The results of the case study and experiment demonstrate the inability of product developers/testers to predict the level of dissatisfaction that is caused by a product failure. In other words, it is no longer possible for a designer to be a user. As such, these experimental results provide an explanation for the increasing number of product complaints in consumer electronics. Considering the continuous character of these trends, new methods should be developed to incorporate this user-perspective into the development process.