Authenticity in Product Development
Abstract
We are told that ‘authenticity’ is what todays customers want. In this study, industrial designers have been interviewed about authenticity. Understanding the concept of authenticity, from a product development and industrial design point of view, is seen as an important way to understand how value, relevant to customers and consumers, may be added to products. This paper concludes that the nebulousness of the concept of authenticity renders it ineffective as a standalone tool for developing new products. Once on the market authenticity can, however, be seen as a factor that may determine the success or failure of a product. Authenticity may possibly not be a guarantee determinant of market success. However, it may be an analytical tool in determining market failure in retrospect. No product developer may ever rely on a given recipe that will always deliver ‘authenticity’ to the market. But if market and customer input is valid and reliable in the early research phase of the development of a product, then designers may be more inclined to use authenticity as an effective design influencer.
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