Marketing decisions of young product designers: A study in the university environment in the Czech Republic

Customer requirements for products are often volatile and influenced by culture or current trends. The role of designers is therefore not simple. They have to make serious decisions concerning two strong aspects—functionality and design (aesthetics of the design). These are not easy decisions. Moreover, designers have to take into consideration customer requirements. This study gives insight into how university students—young designers—perceive the importance of specific aspects of product design. This article aims to determine the most important aspects of designing products by young designers who are future graduates of applied arts. To achieve the goal, the article is based on the partial outputs of the research conducted through a questionnaire survey in 2018. Altogether, 136 university design students were approached. They were encouraged to share their preferences when deciding on customer requirements in the following aspects: overall visual appearance of the product, ergonomic aspects, aesthetic aspects, functionality, manipulability, and selection of material. Furthermore, students were asked to deal with customer preferences from the ecological, economic, aesthetic, functional, and technological point of view. To evaluate the obtained data, descriptive statistics is used. In addition, the ANOVA test is applied too in order to measure the differences tested for statistical significance in the 5% significance level between opinions of the investigated statement and a view of customer product preferences from the perspective of young designers. The presented outcomes of the research are useful for understanding the attitudes that the generation of young designers has towards the design in general, more specially towards the design process, and most importantly towards complex design thinking showing their new, modern, and innovative approach in terms of customer engagement. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlín