Design and development of a need analysis method based on cognitive mapping techniques

Analyzing needs is essential in any innovation project. A product/service should be designed and developed according to users’ needs so that it could be successful in the market and satisfy its users. However, it is not just the users who are interacting with a product. Designers, developers, project managers, business analysts and other stakeholders might be interacting with the product and will thereupon have needs to be considered. Thus, it is important to deeply analyze the needs and the interrelationships among them to empathize with users and stakeholders while detecting their points of conflict. Cognitive maps are powerful tools in visualizing enormous amounts of data in a network and combined with a data analysis method, they could act as a decision support for designers and developers in innovation projects. Hence, the main objective of this project is to propose a needs analysis method based on cognitive mapping acting as a decision support in the product/service development process.

Faculty Supervisor:

Fabiano Armellini

Student:

Partner:

Canadian National

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Transportation and warehousing

University:

Polytechnique Montréal

Program: