ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to verify the method in the elicitation of latent needs from consumer needs by conducting the working prototype-based interview and collecting raw data which is responses from the consumer. Latent needs are those that many consumers recognize as important in a final product but do not or cannot articulate in advance. The challenge in identifying latent needs is finding the method to elicit from consumers the needs which are not addressed by any inventors yet in the present market but would delight consumers if delivered tomorrow. After conducting a consumer feedback questionnaire via the internet, a working prototype was created. The working prototype then was used as material to prepare presentation slides. The first presentation slides were focused on the background problems and ideas for the solutions while the second presentation slides provided consumers with a prototype and story of the product that was believed would be one of the solutions to the problems. Based on the results, latent needs interpreted from interviewees’ responses and the categories of the needs obtained from the Prototype-based interviews are more than from the Problem-based interview. The latent needs that we were able to obtain from this research were for example, “The device is able to detect small changes in a child while changing a diaper” and “The device is able to detect small changes in a child while watching he/she sleeping” which could lead into the prevention of unwanted incident such as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This supports our assumption that showing working prototype based materials with story descriptions can be effective in uncovering potential latent needs. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to give the interviewees chances to touch and look closely at the working prototype therefore latent needs possibly gained from this experience are still uncovered. Although there are still limitations in our findings, the method that we proposed is able to support discovering latent needs in future. © 2022 The Japan Society of Mechanical.