Consider Quality

Testing Our Concept

As we narrowed the combination of measures that would be fed back to the user, we chose to dig through our old receipts to test the effectiveness of the feedback based on real purchases.

Using this approach was helpful for two reasons. First, we discovered that a majority of our expenses fell into categories outside consumer goods. Examples include food and services. We would need a way block such purchases from our system, so our focus on consumer products did not get clouded. We determined that products would be cataloged by UPCs. Based on information stored within the UPC and data pulled from the internet, we could create categories in our database. Eventually, as our database became more robust, we could further break product categories down to compare products based on similar functionality. We looked into the GS1 system of standards to identify which categories would be blocked. GS1 is not only the organization which developed the UPC, but its system of standards is the most universally used to communicate product details along the supply chain.

The second advantage to reviewing our purchases is that we were able to determine an average daily cost across all categories of products. By taking the full price of a product and dividing it by the number of days that it lasts, we can find the amount that it costs a user to use, wear, or operate a given product each day. According to our purchases, this number averaged out to approximately $0.08 per day. While we do not expect this number to be accurate for all products, it provides us with a starting point to evaluate products. As product categories and functionality were built up in our database, this threshold could be tailored for a given product.

Determining Uses of our Prototype and Narrowing the Possibilities

To clarify the intent of our database and interface from the user perspective, we identified three main purposes this system would achieve: Care, Share, and Compare.

“Care” would consist of a personal barometer that will teach the consumer how spending affects personal savings and larger impact measures, as well as how these standings compare to others’ standings. By promoting self-reflection, it would inspire users to take note of their habits and care more about what they purchase and where they shop for it.

“Share” would contain product pages consisting of reviews and manufacturer added content, creating a forum for dialogue between consumers, retailers, and manufacturers, as well as transparency of supply chain practices and product performance results.

“Compare” would be an adaption of the interface for a mobile phone and for use in the store environment; a consumer could use barcode scanning technology to see how similar purchase options will affect his or her measures, what experiences other users have reported with these products, and details about products’ back stories prior to purchase.

As we continued to develop our prototype, we needed to limit how measures would be combined to provide the user with feedback and that the combinations we chose were, indeed, feasible. We organized the possibilities based on three criteria:

What can we do right now?

What information will be filled out automatically, and what will require user effort?

What are the basic units of information, and when should cumulative measures be used?

These questions enabled us to organize the features of the system and develop a cohesive program to engage users and ultimately change the habits of consumers.

How Do We Plan to Measure Quality?

We now had a solid framework of how we thought quality should be defined and a clear vision for how we could use this framework to influence consumer decisions.

The next step was to determine how each of the three sub-definitions of quality would be measured. Since our system would automatically know when a purchase was made and how much a user paid for it, it would also prompt the user to report when the product reached the end of its lifespan. We could have an algorithm set to divide the average lifespan of a product by the price paid to get the product daily cost. Quality of Performance would be based on whether a product performed better than or worse than a preset overall average daily cost.

The second component, the Quality of Transaction, focuses on retail operations and is divided into two separate sections. We learned that not only is it important to know if a retailer has high corporate responsibility (pays fair wages, take measures to care for the environment, gives back to the community, etc.), but whether the retailer is local or not effects how profits are filtered back into the local economy. Corporate responsibility would be determined through the use of existing classification and certification measures; for example, B-Lab’s survey, the most comprehensive system that we have encountered, could be used to measure each company (but not certify).

The third component, the Quality of Origin, would measure the manufacturer’s level of corporate responsibility. If measurement tool such as B-Lab’s survey was used, it is catered to different company types, so manufacturers could be rated based on their adherence to specific requirements different than the retailer. Although in our research we also found that the manufacturer can be measured as quality as conformance to standards, we decided to exclude this from our framework since the consistency of the process through which a product is made is insignificant if the product itself is being measured.

After developing our framework, we tested common purchase options against the measures outlined above and found that six supply chain models seem to be most common. We determined that whether a purchase achieved above or below a certain threshold for the four measures listed above, it would receive points. Because inherent quality is the most important aspect of the Quality of Purchase (if a product does not fulfill a need, the other factors are irrelevant), we have weighted at four times the other measures so that it takes precedence in decision-making. An overall purchase score would result– in this case, out of a possible seven points. In the diagram below, product and brand performance have been estimated for demonstration purposes.

It is important to note that the framework we developed currently exists as a proposal for a way to change consumer behavior based off our research into the historical context of decision-making. It would take a decent amount of time and refinement to make it a reality. As we pieced together this framework, we became fully aware that this was an ideal system and it would be an especially large undertaking to gather the two corporate responsibility measures. We would need to work with an existing measurement system and would have to get retailers and manufacturers to take such a survey. Therefore, in the remainder of the semester, we decided to would focus on what was most feasible if we were to being building this system tomorrow. The result was a five-point system, which would allow users to become familiar with two, more simplistic measures first (see diagram below). However, as our database built up and users learned to navigate the first two measures, we could build back into the database and interface the two measures pertaining to corporate responsibility.

At this time, the purpose of points would be to rank purchases in a hierarchy to distinguish between good and poor purchase decisions. Eventually, as we further develop our prototype, these points would have some benefit to users, encouraging them to seek better purchases.

Discount Culture: A Greater Reliance on Heuristics

We have been recently doing research into decision-making theory. Early theories saw the consumer as being very rational, who diligently considered the benefits and disadvantages of an outcome and weighed information according to its value. However, we all know that many of our behaviors are not rational. Today it is generally accepted that consumers have a range of processes, which they apply to a given decision based on the amount of effort they feel is needed to reach a satisfactory outcome. On one end of the spectrum is a rational, complex decision making process, but on the other end lies heuristics. Heuristics are learned short cuts that we rely on to make more efficient decisions, preventing mental burn-out.

One reason the decision-making process is not always calculated is because there is a limit to how many pieces of information people can process. The level of the decision-making process used is largely determined by costs associated with gathering information, which could be time or money, and how useful information will be to come to a conclusion. We propose that with the rise of the discount culture and emphasis on marketing, the extent to which people rely on heuristics to determine purchase decisions has increased.

In the bazaar culture, only one layer of information, inherent product attributes, was available. Information was accessible and comparison of alternatives was easy to perform. Objects were also intended to last longer, so purchase decisions were more significant. Costs associated with using extended problem solving were low and the value gained from making educated decisions was high.

Although some would argue that information today is more accessible, there are many layers of information consumers must dig through to gain meaning from the information. Every day, the average adult comes in contact with 3,500 bits of advertising. Thirty years ago, this number was only 560.*   Not only does the consumer have the product attributes to compare, but he may consider if the brand is reliable, what celebrities endorse the product and if their values match his, the social significance of the product, if there are hidden motives in a marketing message, and much more. As number of factors on which to make a decision rises, so do the costs of using more processing. Also, since inherent quality of a product is often masked with marketing, the direct benefits gained from making the correct decision are more obscure. When information is not readily accessible or easily interpreted, arbitrary choice and trial of a product (relying on heuristics) may be more productive than using more processing.

*Michael R. Solomon, Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being, 8th Edition (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), 7.

Identifying Existing Technology, Software, and Web Interfaces

Digital communication, which has exploded in recent years, proved to be a strong direction for our project. We spent some time looking into web interfaces and mobile applications, which aligned with some of the possible project outcomes we had been discussing.

Product review sites, such as Consumer Reports and Amazon.com showed us how product information is currently being communicated to consumers. Having experience using these sites as consumers, we knew they also proved to be effective in impacting choices.

Almost anyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows that social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are successful in their ability to bring people together online. However we also came across Blippy, a spin-off of Twitter that uses the power of social networking to share personal purchases in a public environment. A member securely links his or her credit card to an account, and purchases made on that card are automatically posted online. Although this site is somewhat controversial, it was of particular interest to us. We felt that consumer spending could be expanded upon to reflect more meaningful information than just what someone purchased and how much was paid. By combining these measures with the measures of some of the labeling and certification systems we had researched, we felt Blippy had potential to cause positive change in consumer behavior.

Lastly, our venture into the realm of mobile applications yielded promising results. One application called Red Laser, affords consumers the ability to retrieve information about any product with a barcode by taking a photograph of the barcode using the camera on a mobile device. This application could be used to provide the consumer with feedback about a potential purchase in the retail environment. Foursquare, another mobile application, encourages users to explore their local community through rewards. This premise could be valuable in promoting local retailers.

As we continued to explore these different technologies and services, we began to feel as if our project was veering away from our original trajectory.  Although many of these technologies seemed to have great potential for our project, we had yet to come up with the concept of a way to use them that seemed to click. To keep ourselves on track, we revisited our original argument; we needed to address the overall lifespan of a product and consider the economy on both local and national levels.

Further brainstorming with these main points in the back of our heads resulted in a clear design statement:

Create a database and web interface (built off of Blippy’s system of linking to user credit card purchases to a social networking tool) where users contribute content on product performance so that other users can benefit from their experiences.

Two components that users will contribute will be visual reviews (making product reviews a visual process rather than textual) and the lifespan of a product.

Product performance will then be combined with existing product facts, statistics, and certification measures to provide an overview of quality of purchase.

Organizing and Exploring Existing Systems

After creating the consumption timeline, we spent hours upon hours expanding on our favorite ideas to try to find the best possible solution to the problems of the discount culture we outlined in our research. Although we felt like there was strong potential to use a web interface and/or barcode scanning technology on mobile phones to provide consumers with meaningful information when shopping, all of our ideas seemed to be missing something.

The biggest issue was that across our ideas, there was no final definition of quality. It may seem late in our project to determine this important aspect, but we did not want to latch onto one definition too soon and overlook an important factor.  Our thesis is rooted in quality as the durability and physical attributes of a product. However, something like a guide that informed consumers exactly what to look for when examining a product seemed insufficient. Many of our other ideas, such as the barometer, were centered on an expanded definition of quality, which included the corporate responsibility of manufacturers and producers. None of our ideas seemed to bring congruency between the two definitions of quality, but we kept insisting that both were significant and should not be considered independently.

In an attempt to better understand how these definitions of quality are currently being promoted and to prevent ourselves from overlapping with something that has already been done, we expanded our research on existing labeling, and certification systems, retail networks, marketplaces and management approaches. By revisiting and organizing existing systems, we realized all of them focus on one of three major parts of the supply chain: the product, the retailer, and production. Further, within each of these categories, there are several different ways quality is defined.

Although a few systems can be applied to more than one part of the supply chain, they evaluate each segment separately. We found many of them to be highly successful in determining quality, yet none encompassed an overall evaluation of how a product gets to the consumer and how that same product performs for the consumer. The more we compared the various systems, the more we began to see the potential to incorporate all three definitions of quality into a larger framework. Our idea of the Quality of Purchase was our answer to finding congruency between varied definitions of quality.

Plotting Prototype Ideas Along a Consumption Time Line

At the end of our committee meeting, and after wrapping up our study with consumers, we had tons of ideas for our prototype. All were focused on assisting the consumer to improve their purchase decisions by incorporating quality into their evaluation process. The problem was that these ideas were all over the place—ranging from a tool that would help consumers evaluate the severity of a need, to a shopping GPS system for privately owned and local stores, to a map that shows a person where in the community his or her money is going.  To begin to organize our ideas for a prototype, we plotted them along a consumption time line. Although consumption never really starts or stops, each product cycle can be seen as starting when the consumer evaluates his or her needs and ending when the product reaches the end of its lifespan. As with our target audience, we felt that we needed to refine our focus and look at a particular portion of the time line. Because we determined evaluation of a need would be either very subjective or would constitute a long list of questions, we felt that the time before, during, and after a purchase would be the most effective segments in which to engage consumers.

Analyzing Information from Interviews and Testing

Historical and cultural evidence supports the hypothesis that people can make decisions based on inherent quality——the (expected) durability and functionality of a product, which are a result of the materials and construction used—but many times environmental influences result in decisions based on price to triumph.

A few weeks back, we began preparing for a two-prong study with consumers to prove the above hypothesis and to learn more about consumers’ spending habits. Now, our data collection is complete, and the results are in!

The Quality Identification Test included 20 participants ranging from the ages of 21-75 with backgrounds in law, film and video, science, design, engineering, culinary studies, and much more. By asking participants to put 5 categories of products (with 3 products in each) in order of low-middle-high, we were able to determine that consumers can accurately determine the level of quality of a product, based on it physical attributes approximately 70% of the time. Because our research has shown that quality is not a top determinant when the majority of purchase decisions are made, our results continued to support our conclusion that the retail environment stifles peoples’ ability to consider quality when choosing a product.

In addition to these statistics, we conducted formal interviews with some regular discount store shoppers. We were able to determine that there are three primary types of consumers: Die-Hard Discounters, the Middle Ground, and the Quality Consumers. Die-Hard Discounters may be aware of their spending habits, but they consistently embrace low prices and have little interest in changing their habits. The Middle Ground consists of consumers who enjoy small, local retailers but the good deals and the overall convenience of large discounters attract them for the bulk of their expenses. The final group, the Quality Consumers, are socially, economically, and quality conscious. They will spend a little bit extra to obtain higher quality goods and support the local economy. While we did not conduct full interviews with consumers from this last group, we felt that it was important to acknowledge that a small portion of consumers do defy the current trend towards discount culture.

Our findings showed us that people in the Middle Ground should serve as our target audience for several reasons. First, the majority of those interviewed fell in this category, so the largest percentage of consumers would be reached. Second, many of these consumers know the advantages of more quality conscious habits and are aware of some of the downfalls of the discount model, so they are more willing to accept minor changes to their lifestyle if it improved their personal well being and the health of the local economy. Finally, because this group of consumers falls between the two extremes, it has the most potential to affect a wider consumer base as positive effects filter out into towards the outliers.

Committee Meeting

In addition to interviews, we have been busy planning for our first committee meeting, which we held yesterday. A special thanks goes out to Dr. Ben Olshin , Jonas Milder , Carrie Collins and Will McHale for attending.

Our meeting began with a recap of the problem we are addressing and our revised thesis statement:

By addressing several factors in consumer decision-making, design can elicit and reinforce purchasing patterns based on considerations of quality in products. This revival of a “culture of quality” — as opposed to the current emphasis on low prices — can potentially improve personal spending habits, reduce waste, and refocus the economy toward longer-term considerations.

We then expanded on the book research we have been doing since December, the last time we presented. New information included how the Cold War contributed to the rise of transitory thinking in the American culture and a deeper look into consumer decision-making, with an emphasis on heuristics. These are cognitive short-cuts people use when making decisions so they can retain their mental capacity for more important information. We discussed how book research influenced our field research, mainly interviews with both experts and consumers. Although we intend to further investigate our interview results, we felt it was important to suggest future steps and some possible outcomes for our project so we could receive feedback. We only have 7 weeks left to complete our thesis, so we need to begin prototyping soon!

Feedback following our presentation was focused mostly on the future steps. This was reassuring, since it meant there were no fundamental flaws in our theory. The three ideas we proposed were:

• a guide for consumers to understand which product attributes to look for and rules for understanding the tactics retailers use to encourage impulse buying
• Cellular Conscious, which would provide the other side of the story when promotions are sent to a customer’s phone upon entering a store or a consumer scans a barcode in a store to compare store and online prices
• a personal barometer which would help consumers evaluate their needs and suggest alternatives, such as rental services, instead of purchasing poor quality when a need is low

Preferences were varied, but we ultimately determined we would explore some combination of all three, probably in the form of a phone application.Opinions were also varied on whether we should focus on quality as the physical attributes of a product or incorporate social, environmental and economic considerations into our definition. It was determined we could use some combination of both. Jonas also pointed out that based on our research, our focus could go one of two ways. The first was to try to influence consumers away from discounters (which is unlikely given their power) and the other was to provide support for local businesses. Carrie then suggested we focus on consumers who would fall in the knowledgeable group when it comes to larger issues, but many times opt to go to the discounter because of convenience. If we could develop a map which helped these people find where to fufill their product needs in a given neighborhood while helping a larger cause, they could make a significant impact.

Our meeting provided us with clarity and a focus to keep moving forward. Although it seems like there are many possible components to include our design, we have begun brainstorming a way to structure several layers of information. We will write more about this later, once we have had some time to fully process our brainstorm.

Interviews

After much preparation, we finally held interviews with our first group of consumers. We had arranged for the interviews to be broken into six sections, each focusing on an area that we had identified as being particularly useful for our studies.

The first section, the experiment to determine quality, was designed to prove our initial assertion: People are able to make decisions based on the inherent quality (the physical attributes) of a product, but many retail environments distract them from using these skills. We started by removing the products from their retail context, covering any labels, tags, or visible branding. This left our subjects with only their powers of observation to determine what differentiated one product from another. We then arranged the five groups of products, with three levels of quality each, on a table according to the product type (being careful to mix up the order each time). Our intent was to let each test subject to run through the line-up once, then take them through a second time and give them suggestions of features to examine. This ensured that even if an individual were unfamiliar with a particular product, they would still be able to identify some important attributes that could better inform or even change their first opinion.

To aid in their selection process (and to help us identify their choices), we developed a Quality Analysis Tool. This tool consisted of three cards, each with a label of High, Middle, or Low Quality. While the function of these cards was very basic, it reduced the cognitive load of our interviewees and gave them a chance to put their own label on a product. We had a number of fellow classmates test out this system before the actual interviews, and we found that they thoroughly enjoyed using these cards, and often commented on how they had fun going through the products.

The second section was devoted to determining some basic information about the interviewee and their shopping/consumption habits. We looked into their reasons for going shopping, their definitions of quality, and what they enjoy about shopping in particular retailers. This gave us insight as to whether their purchases stemmed from needs or wants, what they thought a quality product should do, and how they felt about the atmosphere, convenience, range of goods, and prices at their store of choice.

The third section focused on short vs. long-term thinking. We wanted to know how far ahead consumers thought when making a purchase, and how long they felt a product should last. This portion alone would be instrumental in identifying the consumers which more impulsive and which are more calculated, and how durability relates to these behaviors.

In the fourth section, we aimed to determine if certain shopper personalities existed, and if so, what sort of behaviors and philosophies would identify each one. We read a list of statements to each interviewee and then asked them to rate each statement on a scale of one to five, with one being “strongly disagree”, three being “neutral”, and five being “strongly agree.” These questions varied, but focused primarily on how each consumer thought and behaved at the point of purchase.

The fifth section of the interview followed the same format as the fourth, but focused instead on the subject’s knowledge of how their behavior played into the larger picture. These questions dealt with the economy, long-term personal spending, and quality of life. These questions tended to be more thought provoking, so many of the questions contained a follow-up portion asking the subject to explain the reasoning for his or her answer.

The sixth and final section looked at previous purchases that the subject had made. We asked each individual to walk us through two purchases; one in which quality was a determining factor, and one in which it was not. Subjects would essentially tell the story of their purchase, from the first moment they thought about it right up until they shared it with us. This would allow us to see their reasoning in action, whether or not it served their purpose, and if they felt any level of pride or remorse for having purchased it after time had passed.

The interviews went incredibly well. Subjects especially enjoyed the first phase, several even commenting “I want to cheat so bad!” upon seeing that brand labels had been obscured. Even in the other portions of the interview, our subjects were eager to tell us their story and why they behave in the way that they do. One individual even commented, “You guys are going to make me go on a budget, I’ve never talked about these things out loud before!” Perhaps most exciting, though, was the result of the experiment. Overall, subjects were able to determine the quality of the different products and place them in the correct order 73.3 percent of the time. At this time, it certainly appears that our assertion about consumers being able to determine quality is correct. We aim to repeat this particular phase of the interview with many more people from other demographics to achieve more conclusive results.