Innovative Mining of User Requirements Through Combined Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis: An Automotive Case Study

As the automotive industry advances rapidly, user needs are in a constant state of evolution. Driven by advancements in big data, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing, mining user requirements from user-generated content (UGC) on social media has become an effective way to understand these dynamic needs. While existing technologies have progressed in topic identification and sentiment analysis, single-method approaches often face limitations. This study proposes a novel method for user requirement mining based on BERTopic and RoBERTa, combining the strengths of topic modeling and sentiment analysis to provide a more comprehensive analysis of user needs. To validate this approach, UGC data from four major Chinese media platforms were collected. BERTopic was applied for topic extraction and RoBERTa for sentiment analysis, facilitating a linked analysis of user emotions and identified topics. The findings categorize user requirements into four main areas-performance, comfort and experience, price sensitivity, and safety-while also reflecting the increasing relevance of advanced features, such as sensors, powertrain performance, and other technologies. This method enhances user requirement identification by integrating sentiment analysis with topic modeling, offering actionable insights for automotive manufacturers in product optimization and marketing strategies and presenting a scalable approach adaptable across various industries.