Design for Success

Book excerpt: In the field of engineering like many others, foreign competitors are beating U.S. businesses to the punch in terms of bringing new products successfully to the marketplace. How can U.S. engineering companies compete? Simply by turning to this thought-provoking work which answers these and many other questions of successful design products and systems that are market driven and user oriented. Using a comprehensive methodological framework for human-centered design of complex systems, it covers four phases: naturalist, marketing, engineering, sales and service. A wide variety of tools and techniques are discussed within this framework, with illustrated case histories introduced early and developed throughout the chapters. This thorough and consistent framework for design, in combination with numerous ``how to'' tips, provides the reader with a self-contained, applications-oriented plan with which to pursue design concepts.