Towards a design of consumer durables

In the context of developing future technology options, a method is outlined to identify the mixes of attributes that consumers would be prepared to acquire and their relative importance. A way of assessing distance between consumers is proposed in terms of the importances of attributes, to cluster the consumers in terms of these distances, and to determine the attribute mixes that correspond to these clusters. The output is a consumer-oriented set of product options. An application to telecommunication services for a sample of organisations is used to illustrate the real-world relevance of the approach.