Lifestyle Laboratory by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) - Empowering Customers to Learn, Evaluate and Affect Product Design
Yukari Semmyo, Manager of TEPCO Lifestyle Laboratory, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
TEPCO's lifestyle laboratory advises customers how best to use and choose electrical appliances suitable for their individual life styles. These recommendations are based on data collected by checking and inspecting various electric appliances, including IH cooking heaters, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washing machines, lamps, microwave ovens, etc. TEPCO lifestyle laboratory thinks that giving customers opportunities to learn about various products and how these products can adapt to their life styles is part of universal design.
How about TEPCO Lifestyle Laboratory?
TEPCO lifestyle laboratory offers advice on how best to use and choose electrical appliances suitable for customers' life styles based on data that has been collected through checking and inspecting the performance of various kinds of electric appliances. For example, they are proposing about the following electric appliances. IH cooking heater, Vacuum cleaner, Dishwasher, Washing machine, Lighting, Microwave oven and so on.
Many opinions about the household electrical appliances - "it does not understand that which should be chosen," "a function being too complicated and being unable to master well," and "wants a specialist to advise freely" - came to be quickly brought near by the Tokyo Electric Power company (=TEPCO) in the past several years. It is expected that such opinions increase increasingly after this.
There, they did to developing the information offer service for carrying out "answering to customer's needs" and it "realizing a comfortable life." This is "TEPCO lifestyle laboratory." We were established August 22, 2002 in Tokyo, Japan. Now, about 370,000 people are coming to the laboratory.
Our Concepts
TEPCO lifestyle laboratory have three concepts. It is shown below.
- We offer advice on how best to use and choose electrical appliances suitable for customers' life styles.
- We collect and send household-electric-appliances information in neutrality and a fair position.
- We examine based on customer's voice in the same commercial elegance as the home electrical appliances with which the visitor is used.
Thus, the viewpoints of "customer" have been just the foundations of our activity.
Activity of the Universal Design in TEPCO Lifestyle Laboratory
TEPCO lifestyle laboratory carried out the opinion poll about the household electric appliances for a 60 or older-year citizen. Then, understanding as a result of the investigation is that elderly people have a feeling of refusal in "something for elderly people." That is, "for elderly people" is not important and it is important to suit someone's "life style."
People do not need the universal design by the reason of since it is elderly people. It is thought that a universal design exists as a means to solve the subject whether we want what life to realize.
It being required for us who are the positions of providing customers with household-electric-appliances information is clarifying the needs which any customers is not aware of, grasping the visitor's needs certainly and not having a prejudice.
We exhibited the introduced results of an investigation for about one month. The theme of exhibition was a "household electric appliances which is easy to use for elderly people" at the beginning. However, while analyzing the visitor's voice, just proposal of "the household electric appliances, which realizes the life style that the man desires" reached the idea whether to be "the universal design of household electric appliances," and became "the household-electric-appliances exhibition which is easy to use for anyone" after all.
Conclusion
The subject of a universal design can be referred to as continuing practicing these. Therefore, TEPCO lifestyle laboratory think it a universal design to just offer advice or information exactly adapted to customer's life style.
Images
Photo 1: Entrance of TEPCO life style laboratory.
Photo 2: Offers advice on how best to use and choose
electrical appliances suitable for customers' life styles.
Photo 3: Exhibition "The household-electric-appliances
that are easy to use for anyone."