Perceptions of Innovation in Product Form and Function: A Comparison of Historical and Future Oriented Data Mining

When product functions and qualities are similar across products, customers make their purchasing decision upon aesthetic form. Form presents a significant competitive factor that improves the value of a product. Overall, the purpose of this study is to examine the most important product design factors that affect the market share trends in products. As a case study we center our analyses on mobile phones. Study uses product characteristics for 1,028 mobile phones released between 2003 and 2008 as a case study. Multiple linear regression analysis is used to mine the date to find highly correlated variables that influence the market share, and Mallow’s Cp method is used to determine the best-fitting model. The Partial Regression Coefficients are used to evaluate the relative importance of design criteria. The nine mobile phone design features that affect the market share were identified, and the block form style is determined as the most important design factor. Then, the results of our historical data mining are compared to a future oriented approach (survey analysis using Nominal Logistic Regression). We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches, and provide inferences about how investments should be directed in future mobile phone designs.