活动名称：木艺木趣国际研讨会暨展览会
时间地点：2011年10月21日，印度班加罗尔J N Tata多功能礼堂
演讲嘉宾：Maria Riala
演讲题目：Mapping customers’ minds with a new technique: the case of housing needs and preferences in Finland

摘要：This study aims to explore what Finnish customers need and want from housing, and new methods for studying customer preferences. The focus will be on apartments, because most of the previous studies, in Finland and elsewhere, have concentrated on the living environment on a more general level.

The approach is based on the means-end theory of consumer research. Traditionally studies using this theory have used laddering interviews to uncover chains linking product attributes to their psychological consequences, and to a person‘s values. One weakness of these approaches is the reliance they place on the way researchers interpret these connections to create hierarchical value chains.

In this study we used new, experimental methods to identify customer needs and preferences. The idea was based on the concept of a mind map. A mind map is a visual representation of a complex reality, and it offers the respondents a more natural way of thinking about their preferences than is the case in traditional laddering interviews. The respondents were able to create their own means-end networks with this online tool, and thus describe what they thought was important in apartments.

The main advantage of our approach is that the resulting networks can be analysed with quantitative methods. This reduces the influence of researchers and makes it possible to analyse larger data sets.

The findings of this study will be applied in the Finnish timber construction sector, which is currently a focus for many development activities. By using the findings of the study, timber construction industries can both build houses which better meet consumer needs, and market them more successfully. The research method can also be applied to other fields and other types of wood products.

Maria Riala, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Finland.