Methods - Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications - page 253

9.14 Soundscape Customer Satisfaction
The auditory landscape or soundscape has many positive aspects, for instance,
flowing waters from urban fountains may have a soothing effect masking irritating
sounds. Traffic noise can produce annoyance, but the sound from a single vehicle
can be considered an important signal for pedestrian safety when crossing a road.
Human sounds of talking can be interpreted as irritating by people reading a topic or
engaged in conversation, but could be pleasant during shopping activity. All these
elements are extremely useful to engineers and architects for planning or restyling
urban sonic spaces.
The soundscape can be an inconvenient and highly complex intermediate step in
the process of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is a theory of product
development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Noriaki Kano
that classified customer preferences into five categories: Attractive,
One-Dimensional, Must-Be, Indifferent, Reverse. We briefly describe these quality
categories.
Attractive Quality . This attribute contributes to satisfaction when achieved fully,
but does not cause dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. Normally is not expected.
One-Dimensional Quality. This attribute contributes to satisfaction when fulfilled
and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled because it is expected.
Must-be Quality. This attribute is taken for granted when fulfilled but result in
dissatisfaction when not fulfilled.
Indifferent Quality. This attribute refers to aspects that are neither good nor bad, and
they do not result in either customer satisfaction or customer dissatisfaction.
Reverse Quality. This attribute refers to a high degree of achievement resulting in
dissatisfaction and to the fact that not all customers are alike.
Intervention in a space modifies the position of the sound source, the reflective
surfaces, and in general the physical environment in which the sound is produced
and diffused. Changes in space can create new more interesting configurations,
increase of comfort, or vibrant, spooky, obtrusive, or dull feelings.
In the creation of an attractive soundscape the application of a Kano model
seems a good solution. In Fig. 9.21 is shown a typical Kano plot in which the
horizontal axis indicates the degree at which an aspect of product or service is
present. The vertical axis shows the level of customer satisfaction. These aspects
are split into three categories: Performance, Basic, Excitement . Performance works
at one dimensionality: “more is better” - “less is better.”
The basic requirement considers absence as a dissatisfaction. For instance, a car
starter: a poor starter leads to dissatisfaction, but a good starter does not increase the
car satisfaction.
Excitement or attractive requirement, a usually unexpected aspect of a product,
and its absence does not produce dissatisfaction.
The Kano model allows locating the order at which a soundscape evaluation
must be carried out.