Product Testing Introduction and Purpose

Product Testing Introduction and Purpose

Product testing, often known as consumer testing or comparison testing, is a method used to evaluate a product’s attributes or capabilities.

According to the hypothesis, firms have produced branded items since the introduction of mass manufacturing that they claim and market to be similar within some technical standard.

Consumers should be able to grasp what goods will accomplish for them and which items are the greatest values, according to product testing. By verifying promises made during marketing tactics like advertising, which by their very nature are in the benefit of the business distributing the service and not always in the interest of the customer, product testing is a technique to improve consumer protection. The contemporary consumer movement began with the introduction of product testing.

A company, an independent laboratory, a government organisation, etc. may do product testing. Frequently, testing is conducted using an established formal test procedure. Other times, engineers create test procedures that are appropriate for the intended use. In comparative testing, several identical samples of comparable items are put through the same test procedures.

Purpose of Product Testing

Product testing might have a variety of purposes, such as:

• Determine if, or verify that, the requirements of a specification, regulation, or contract are met
• Decide if a new product development program is on track: Demonstrate proof of concept
• Provide standard data for other scientific, engineering, and quality assurance functions
• Validate suitability for end-use
• Provide a basis for technical communication
• Provide a technical means of comparison of several options
• Provide evidence in legal proceedings: product liability, patents, product claims, etc.
• Help solve problems with current product
• Help identify potential cost savings in products

Product tests can be used for:

• Reproducing the types of damage to products found from consumer usage
• Controlling the uniformity of production of products or components

The Major Techniques

The monadic, sequential monadic, paired comparison, and Proto monadic research designs are the most widely used research designs for product testing.

1. Monadic Testing

Most of the time, Monadic Testing is the best method. There are many benefits to testing a product on its own. In paired-comparison tests, products can affect each other, but this isn’t the case here. The monadic test is like real life because we usually use products one at a time, which is what the test does.

The monadic test gives the most accurate and useful diagnostic information because it makes the respondent focus on just one product. The monadic design also makes it possible to use normative data and create norms and action standards. Almost any product can be tested by itself, but many can’t be tested correctly using paired-comparison designs. For example, a very strong-tasting product (like hot peppers, alcohol, etc.) might make the taste buds numb or stop working so that the respondent can’t really taste the second product.

2. Sequential Monadic Designs

Sequential Monadic Designs are often used to reduce costs. In this design, each respondent evaluates two products (he or she uses one product and evaluates it, then uses the second product and evaluates it). The sequential monadic design works reasonably well in most instances and offers some of the same advantages as pure monadic testing. One must be aware of what we call the “suppression effect” in sequential monadic testing, however. All the test scores will be lower in a sequential monadic design, compared to a pure monadic test.

Therefore, the results from sequential monadic tests cannot be compared to results from monadic tests. Also, as in paired-comparison testing, an “interaction effect” is at work in sequential monadic designs. If one of the two products is exceptionally good, then the other product’s test scores are disproportionately lower, and vice versa.

3. Paired-Comparison Designs

Paired-Comparison Designs, in which the consumer is asked to use two products and decide which one is better, appeal to our common sense. It’s a great way to present evidence to a jury because it seems to make sense at first glance. The paired comparison can be a very sensitive way to test two products because it can pick up on very small differences. Also, because sample sizes can be smaller in some cases, the paired-comparison test is often less expensive than other methods.

Paired-comparison testing isn’t very useful for a serious, ongoing product testing programme, though. The paired-comparison test doesn’t tell us when both products are bad. Normative data cannot be used with the paired-comparison test. The “interaction effect” has a big impact on the paired-comparison test. This means that any changes to the control product will cause scores for the test product to change in the same way.

4. The Protomonadic Design

The Protomonadic Design (and the definition of this term varies from researcher to researcher) begins as a monadic test, followed by a paired comparison. Often sequential monadic tests are also followed by a paired-comparison test. The protomonadic design yields good diagnostic data, and the paired comparison at the end can be thought of as a safety net as added insurance that the results are correct. The protomonadic design is typically used in centrallocation taste testing, not in-home testing (because of the complexity of execution in the home).