Kano questionnaires

December 5, 2006 by Artem

One of the simplest ways of dividing the product features into must-haves, linear, exciters and even wrong features is to gather the potential customer's opinion with the help of the Kano questionnaires ( PDF ). Kano questionnaires include two questions for the every feature or group of features: the functional question "How do you feel if this feature is present?" and dysfunctional question "How do you feel if this feature is NOT present?"

The customer has to choose one of the five possible options for the answers:
1. I expect it to be this way
2. I like it that way
3. I am neutral
4. I can live with it this way
5. I dislike it this way

Asking both functional and dysfunctional questions helps to go beyond the simple "priorities". For example if the potential user expects some feature to be present, but can live without the feature, it is not really a mandatory feature.

The quickest way to assess the questionnaires is to map them to the following table.

M - Must have
L - Linear
E - Exciter
R - Reverse, i.e. wrong features, that would make the user experience worse
Q - Questionable, i.e. the potential user answers are inconsistent
I - Indifferent, i.e. the potential user doesn't really care about the feature

For example, if a user tells that he can live with a word processor with a spellchecker, but would dislike if a word processor didn't have a spellchecker, than a spellchecker is a mandatory feature for the word processor.

Feature Categorization and Customer Satisfaction series:

• Kano model of customer satisfaction
• Kano questionnaires
• Kano questionnaire survey analysis

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