Purpose – The creation of well-designed products is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to company success. In principle, an effective design process, as part of the wider new product development (NPD) process, should result in well-designed products. This paper aims to present a tool to enable a design team to evaluate their design process in a workshop setting, with a view to targeting improvements. Design/methodology/approach – This tool is based on literature and has been iteratively developed using a mixed research approach, including detailed exploratory cases and application in action research mode. Findings – The resulting tool comprises two main components. A “process audit” based on process maturity principles, which targets the design-related activities in NPD. The process audit enables a company team to identify improvement opportunities in the design process. A product audit enables perceptions towards product characteristics to be assessed. The audit tool does not seek to be a benchmarking tool, but aims to capture “good design” principles in a form which is accessible and useful to practitioners. Practical implications – In use, the tool enabled managers to balance their concern with meeting budget and timescale demands against the importance of producing well-designed products. By first focusing on the tangible output of the design process – the product – practitioners are better able to understand the way in which design decisions influence product usability, desirability and producibility. Evidence from cases confirms the value and originality of this tool. Originality/value – Previous tools addressing product development have focused on strategic and managerial concerns. This novel assessment tool focuses explicitly on design issues, within the wider context of NPD.@en

The creation of new products that satisfy both the needs of customers and of the company is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to a firm's ongoing success. In principle, the design process, as part of the wider new product development (NPD) process, should result in products that are 'well designed', but what does a well-designed product look like? This paper presents a tool to enable a design team to evaluate their products against a range of criteria, with a view to targeting design improvements. This 'product audit' tool is based on literature and has been iteratively developed using a mixed research approach, including detailed exploratory cases and application in action research mode. Previous assessment tools have tackled a narrow set of product issues, such as usability. This tool addresses the 'whole product' and captures aspects of product design in a concise and usable form. The product audit does not seek to be a benchmarking tool. Aspects such as novelty, desirability, usability, and producibility are expanded as simple checklists, to enable perceptions towards product characteristics to be assessed. This novel assessment tool encourages greater consideration of design issues within the wider context of NPD. By focusing attention on the tangible output of the design process - the product - practitioners are better able to understand the way in which design decisions influence product usability, desirability, and producibility. Case evidence confirms both the value and originality of this tool.@en

There is strong evidence of the importance of good design to company success. However, it is apparent that despite this evidence, design skills are often marginalized in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). This article presents a design audit tool that captures good design principles in a form accessible to industry. Previous audit approaches have focused extensively on the management of new product development (NPD). In this research, the audit tool is based on process maturity principles and explicitly targets the design related activities in NPD - specifically in small firms. The design audit has been developed iteratively by application in action research mode and is supported by evidence from literature and exploratory cases. This inductive development enabled the generation of a robust audit tool through intervention in small firms to improve design practices. The resulting audit tool is designed for use in a multifunctional workshop setting. Typical outputs from application include the generation of action plans for improvement in future performance. This audit tool is based around a model of good design that explicitly distinguishes between management and design related activities in NPD. The audit tool has succeeded in encouraging managers to pay greater attention to the design related elements of NPD. This complements the satisfaction of managerial goals typically emphasized in many NPD processes.@en