A Methodology for the Extraction of Design Principles for Unfamiliar Markets

• Main Author: Campbell, Robert D.
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2013
• Subjects: design principles; product characteristics; unfamiliar markets; developing world; Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3557; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4556&context=etd

Successful product design focuses on design principles that are relevant to a target market. Consequently, the better these principles are understood and used, the higher the likelihood that resulting products will be well-received in that market. This thesis presents a method for extracting market-specific design principles for any market. The method employs user/designer-described characteristics of products within a market to extract the design principles specific to that market. The method generalizes the product characteristics, seeks to discover design decisions that could have resulted in those characteristics, and then extracts the underlying design principles. To demonstrate the ability of the method to extract such principles, the method is applied to two disparate markets; (i) best-selling products in the US, and (ii) products created for the developing world. The two sets of resulting principles are compared and shown to be market-specific. The author conclude that the method indeed results in market-specific principles that can be used to guide design activities.