Techy Word of the Week: Kano Model

What is Kano Model Analysis?

The Kano Model of product development and customer satisfaction was published in 1984 by Dr Noriaki Kano, professor of quality management at the Tokyo University of Science.

Kano says that a product or service is about much more than just functionality. It is also about customers' emotions. For example, all customers who buy a new car expect it to stop when they hit the brakes, but many will be delighted by its voice-activated parking-assist system.

The model encourages you to think about how your products relate to your customers' needs, while moving from a "more is always better" approach to product development to a "less is more" approach.

Constantly introducing new features to a product can be expensive and may just add to its complexity without boosting customer satisfaction. On the other hand, adding one particularly attractive feature could delight customers and increase sales without costing significantly more.

How Does the Kano Model Work?

The model assigns three types of attribute (or property) to products and services:

Threshold Attributes (Basics)

These are the basic features that customers expect a product or service to have. For example, when you book into a hotel, you'd expect hot water and a bed with clean linen as an absolute minimum.

Performance Attributes (Satisfiers)

These elements are not absolutely necessary, but they increase a customer's enjoyment of the product or service. Returning to our example, you'd be pleased to discover that your hotel room had free superfast broadband and an HD TV, when you'd normally expect to find paid-for wi-fi and a standard TV.

Excitement Attributes (Delighters)

These are the surprise elements that can really boost your product's competitive edge . They are the features that customers don't even know they want, but are delighted with when they find them. In your hotel room, that might be finding the complimentary Belgian chocolates that the evening turn-down service has left on the bed.

source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_97.htm

Kano’s Five Emotional Response Types

Kano visualized the five emotional responses as curves on a graph, where the y-axis is the emotional response and the x-axis the level of sophistication of a feature. The intensity of the emotional response is driven by how fully present and sophisticated the feature is.

Attractive features

Attractive features trigger feelings of satisfaction and delight when present, but users are not dissatisfied if the feature is not included. Attractive features are unexpected and address previously unmet needs. The best way to discover these types of features is through generative research. These features are key to generating positive buzz about products.

One-Dimensional features

These features result in satisfaction if present and dissatisfaction when they are not. This linear relationship between feature sophistication and emotional response is true primarily for product qualities like ease of use, cost, entertainment value, and security.

Must-Have features

These features are ones that customers expect the product to contain. There is a limit to the emotional benefit gained by embellishing and enhancing must-have features.