Abstract:

If a manufacturer of domestic appliances wants his product planning and product-development to be profitable in the long run, he will have to obtain some knowledge about the circumstances in which housewives do their work, besides analysing the products the competition offers, establishing the own capacity, for development and production, studying market-development, and the testing of the product in the different stages of development. He will only gain a thorough insight in the sales possibilities for new and existing products if he acquaints himself with for instance the way of living of a family, the way in which the housewife spends her time, and her evaluation of the different domestic duties. He should know where in the process of housekeeping bottlenecks occur, which are a housewife’s desires and complaints about the room in which she works, the work she does, and the appliances she uses while doing this work. This more fundamental reconnaissance shows the manufacturer the climate in which his products are used or are going to be used and in this way he can adapt his product-planning and product-development to the future users of his products. In the autumn of 1964, Philips has sponsored such a piece of basic research. The assignment was given to the Nederlands Instituut voor de Publieke Opinie en het Marktonderzoek (NIPO).