The effects of assessing design newness from different perspectives

Abstract

This graduation project is a part of an ongoing study which is focused on predicting product performance, through design innovation. A considerable amount of research has been dedicated to the importance of innovation , especially technical innovation. Design Engineering combines state of the art technology with an appealing skin, making it more desirable to own. The master of SPD combines Design Engineering and Marketing &Sales tools , to explore unknown fields of product development , to gain and exploit better knowledge tools and strategies that can lead to the same goal; better market performing products. A relatively unexplored subject, in this context ,is the role of aesthetics and in particular novelty of product aesthetics in NPD processes. How new should a product look and compared to what ? The following study is dedicated to answer this question from three different points of view. To that purpose a theoretical frame work was constructed ,using the available literature as a basis. It was found that the design newness of products could be measured by comparing a product to 1. Its predecessors, 2. Its brand members and 3. The competing products in the same category. A test case of cars from different brands , that were introduced to the market in a time span of nearly 30 years. Using visual stimuli , car experts rated each car on the three mentioned levels. The results indicate that the design newness of a car is many cases rated very differently , in different contexts and from different perspectives. Therefore design newness could not be seen as a static indication but rather as a dynamic variable that could be chosen according to firm market strategy. The results of this research could be generalised to predict new product performance, using the right design newness comparison as a tool.