This paper aims to suggest a user-approach to doing style designs for apparel products.
A case of the approach to produce a collection of party dresses for mothers-to-be was presented. Two consecutive studies were conducted to understand and identify the needs of contemporary business women for maternity party dresses to attend banquets and functions. In these two studies, direct dialogue with target customers and scene deployment were used to collect the voice of the customer (VOC); affinity diagramming was used to organize the collected VOC data into items that were required by target customers; and the pairwise comparison method of analytic hierarchy process was used to identify important requirements.
In using various design techniques and incorporating appropriate fashion elements, style designs were produced with the primary focus on meeting user needs.
It has been a common practice that marketers do market research and designers do style creation. However, a joint effort of these two parties is required to better understand and address user needs. With the main focus on collecting and analyzing the VOC and organizing it into customer needs before applying various design techniques and incorporating appropriate fashion elements, the style designs that were produced in this case study were highly capable of satisfying user needs.
