The Needs Identification phase of the analysed project involved a combination
of several tasks. The general goal of reducing water and energy consumption
can be considered both a request of the customers and a target self-identified
by the designers according to the general purpose to reduce the ecological footprint
of household appliances.
These needs have been investigated with two diverse but complementary activities.
On the one hand, interviews and questionnaire surveys to customers have
revealed that customers would purchase a ‘green’ washing machine only if it
possesses all the traditional functionalities and features. This means, for instance,
avoiding lengthy washing cycles and the possibility of washing partial
loads while maintaining the same efficiency (expressed by the customers by citing
the well known energy consumption labelling scheme established by EU
Directive 92/75/EC).