Design affordance does matter: a spotlight on categorization and evaluation of hybrid innovations by consumers

In the high-tech field, we are witnessing the proliferation of innovations combining different categories of products into a single one called new hybrid products (NHP). Given the inherent particularities to their hybrid nature, ensuring that the boundaries between their categories of belonging become blurred and making their allocation to a well-defined category difficult, thus increasing the risk perceived by consumers as to the uses and performance of these multifunction products. In this study, qualitative methods are used to gain a boarder understanding of how consumers categorize new hybrid products (NHP) by articulating theories of categorization and affordance. Our results show that product affordance drives the NHP's attribution to a category thereby reducing the uncertainty associated with the choice task. They point the relevance of the holistic perception of the NHP's design in identifying its potential uses and the decomposed view of the design in favoring its attribution to a host category. This chapter will give hints to companies about how the integration of affordance in the design will help de-risking innovation development as affordance is involved not only in their attribution to the appropriate product category but also in their right evaluation and adoption by consumers.