An ontology for relating affective needs to design parameters: Development process and content

Product manufacturers are looking for ways to design and refine their customisation offerings, based on knowledge of affective needs. One approach, CATER, has at its heart an ontology, which supports the exchange of data between the relevant sub-systems in a semantically meaningful manner. This article presents the ontology, specifically emphasising the role of Citarasa, product breakdown and customer selection history. It also presents the ontology development process, including a validation exercise, and discussion of the implications for affective customisation that emerge from the ontology and the development process. This includes issues of how generic an affective ontology can be, the importance of iteration in the customer selection and the functional component of affective requirements.