Research on internal and external mechanisms of attributes transmutation and dissimilation during product evolution-The case of personal mobile communication terminal

With the rapid development of modern information technology and engineering, the maturity of market, the diversity of users´ demands and needs, the connotation, techniques and methods of product design have undergone profound changes. When consumers are choosing the product, what they concern most is the product´s function, the essence of the product. The key point for product designers is to design the products that meet consumers´ requirements for function. Only if designers correctly anticipate the requirements for function and put it into practice in design activities can designers exceed other competitors´ products and their design philosophy. This research studies the evolution of product functional mechanisms and explains the internal and external laws of product evolution, which is the main concern in today´s design world. In this research, specific cases of personal mobile communication terminals are chosen to be the research objects based on qualitative and quantitative research methods. Looking back in the history of mobile communications equipment, 17 representative best-selling products and their parameters are studied through a quantitative analysis. “Means - End Chain” and cluster analysis are used to look into the trend of consumers´ anticipation of products, based on the connection of explicit Product Attributes - Consuming Consequences - Consumer Values; from view of product life cycle, the mechanism how products´ function develops will be explained and the model and trend of the evolution of products´ function will be put forward, which thus guiding designers to make advanced, innovative and market-leading products in designing activities.