ABSTRACT
The Three different types of testing may occur with customers throughout the new product development (NPD) process, depending on the form of the product and the testing objective sought. Concept testing, product use testing, and market testing are distinct classes of methodologies that collect, analyze, and interpret customer data in the course of developing new products and making forecasts. A technique that can be employed during concept testing is lead user analysis. The technique focuses on those customers designated as 'lead users' who reflect needs and wants of the main market early on, possibly several years before these needs and wants emerge in the bulk of the marketplace. Subsumed within quality function deployment are voice-of-the-customer, voice-of-the-engineer, and Kano model analyses, each of which helps to organize thinking around new product functionality and forecasting decisions. The lead user methodology begins with specification of the product market segment. New product forecasting should not rely solely on internal sources and company personnel judgment.
