Measuring Customer Perceived Hi-Tech New Product Performance: A Study of PDA Products

This study intends to expand the extant body of knowledge of customer-oriented and product attribute-based measures of new product performance. Based on personal interviews and a field survey of users of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), we identify six key product dimensions perceived by customers. The results indicate that while customers employ a set of dimensions to judge a PDA product, each dimension is weighted differently in determining new product performance. Only two dimensions, upgradeability/supports and portability, significantly influence overall performance. Customer demographic and product usage variables have no direct impact on performance. In addition, we examine the relationships between six major quality dimensions and overall performance and find that they do not significantly vary in terms of product types and customer geographical locations. The strength of some dimensions on customers’ overall performance evaluation of new product varies depending on the purpose of product usage. Our findings have important implications for new product performance evaluation and market segmentation.