Kano's model in Kansei Engineering to evaluate subjective real estate consumer preferences

Kansei Engineering is a product development tool used to identify users' perceptions and find quantitative relationships between their subjective responses and design features. This paper proposes the use of Kano's model in this process to analyse the impact of different subjective attributes on consumers' purchase decisions. A practical example of real estate promotions design is presented. In the first stage, semantic differential is used to measure the subjective component of the emotional state. In the second stage, regression analysis and Kano's model are used to define the relative weight of each emotional attribute in the purchase decision. Besides linear attributes, Kano's model identified two other kinds of attributes that present a non-linear performance: basic attributes and exciting attributes. Therefore linear models could underestimate the effect of such kind of attributes. Relevance to industry: This information is very relevant for architects and designers as it enables them to determine the extent to which they must direct their efforts at improving certain attributes with the object of improving the global evaluation. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.