A practical evaluation of biometric measures for understanding the consumer experience during direct product evaluation: current and future perspectives

Abstract

Companies need a good understanding of consumer experiences to develop successful in-market products. To aid this goal, there has been a move toward using implicit measures alongside explicit measures to gain insight into different levels of processing important for consumer decision-making. This has involved biometric tools such as those capturing facial behaviour, electroencephalography, eye-tracking, and those capturing autonomic nervous system measures, such as electrodermal activity. Here, current literature involving direct product evaluation and adopting biometric measures in sensory and consumer studies is reviewed. Findings show that technological advances make biometric tools a more practical choice in consumer studies than previously. Further, a trend is observed in studies synchronising the capture of multiple biometric measures alongside explicit measures, offering a deeper understanding of these measures and the information they provide. However, for biometric tools to be of real value in direct product evaluation, there is a need to enhance knowledge on result interpretation.