The Meaning of Dwelling Features

Book excerpt: The Meaning of Dwelling Features. Conceptual and Methodological Issues relates the research areas of housing preferences and the meaning of a dwelling with each other and with aspects of the means-end approach as applied in marketing research. It results in a conceptual and methodological framework for studying the meaning of preferences for dwelling features. These features are viewed as functional for achieving the goals and values that people pursue. The meaning of dwelling features lies in these functional relationships. The model presented in this study therefore relates preferences for the features of a dwelling to the meaning they have for people. These relationships are called meaning structures. Meaning structures are measured by a semi-structured interviewing technique, which is an adapted version of the laddering technique for measuring means-end chains, and network methods are used for the representation and analysis of these meaning structures.