A Systematic Literature Review of Consumers' Cognitive-Affective Needs in Product Design From 1999 to 2019

Understanding consumer cognitive and affective needs is a complex and tricky challenge for consumer studies. Creating and defining product attributes that meet the consumers' personal wishes and needs in different contexts is a challenge that demands new perspectives because there are mismatches between the objective of companies and the consumer's objective, which indicates the need for products to become increasingly consumer-oriented. Product design approaches aim to bring the product and consumer closer together. The objective of this study is to investigate the application of the cognitive and affective needs of the consumer in product design through a systematic review of the literature of publications carried out in the last 20 years. This article selects research carried out in the specific area of cognitive and affective product design and defines the state of the art of the main areas, challenges, and trends. The conclusion that was reached is that cognitive approaches have been updated, are more associated with technology, and so are focused and oriented toward the ease and friendliness of the product. In contrast, affective approaches are older and focus on the quality of life, satisfaction, pleasure, and friendliness of the product. This review indicates that the emotional focus of change for cognitive complexity is due to an understanding of the affective and emotional subjectivity of the consumers and how they can translate these requirements into product attributes. These approaches seem to lose their strength or preference in the areas of design and engineering for more rational and logical cognitive applications, and therefore are more statistically verifiable. Advances in neuroscience are focused on applications in marketing and consumer psychology and some cognitive and affective product designs.

Usage Behaviors on Snapchat, Instagram, and WhatsApp

The main objective of this research is to investigate usage behaviors of different age groups across popular social-media platforms and show what usage behavior is mostly utilized in each social media platform. A sample of 2,883 social media users was used to run a series of t-tests to support the research hypotheses. The findings show that young users (compared with old users) are more likely to use social media platforms for social and personal needs. In addition, across platform analyses indicate that users of WhatsApp (compared with Snapchat and Instagram) are more likely to use the platform for socially integrative needs (e.g., connecting with friends and family and talking), while Instagram and Snapchat users are more likely to use the platforms for affective needs (e.g., entertaining), personally integrative needs (e.g., enhancing self-expression and getting to know new people), tension release (e.g., escaping from boredom), and cognitive needs (e.g., seeking information). A more detailed analysis of age groups across the platforms are further discussed.

Technology Meets Affect

This chapter describes a variety of multimedia incorporated into a course to respond to students' emotional and psychological needs. The course was designed for online, hybrid, as well as traditional face-to-face formats. The multimedia incorporated into the course were tools readily available for collegiate use (e.g., email, Google Drive, Wikispace). This research, based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, asserts that many of the experiences and technological devices integrated into twenty-first century instruction, respond to critical emotional elements of learning. While technological advancements provide convenience, the authors argue that the learner's affective needs are equally supported. Instructors, irrespective of their level of technological proficiency or their access to digital devices, may use these insights to incorporate technology for instruction in more thoughtful ways.