Design guidelines for implementation of user-friendly mass customization toolkits

Mass Customization (MC) Toolkits are basically user interfaces that facilitate communication between the company and customer for customization of products, which transfers design data to customers and user data to companies. These toolkits have some characteristics such as 3D visualization, price feedback, material selection and design tools that make them different from common websites. Therefore, current guidelines for common user interfaces should be improved specifically for mass customization toolkits. This paper aims to propose design guidelines from users’ point of view for web-based MC toolkits that enable software developers and designers to have some fundamentals in hand and to follow them. First the elements of mass customization toolkits, which had been obtained by literature review were presented. Next, result of a study was illuminated to demonstrate the ranking of the elements and their preferred on-screen position. Finally, guidelines were provided for designers and software developers, followed by conclusions and future works.