Industrial designers' processes and tools: projections for developing web-based design guidelines

Systematic design tools such as guidelines can offer designers many advantages in their complex task of creating useful, usable and desirable products. They can enhance effectiveness and efficiency for the design management, evaluation and education. An empirical pilot study investigating a new prototype of design guidelines was conducted with professional industrial designers in New Zealand. The findings indicate that the guidelines are not only useful for design professionals, but also may be very helpful to support novice designers. The study confirmed that the incentive to use of the guidelines is largely affected by their usability with a visually appealing presentation and easy demand-driven access being crucial for the acceptance of guidelines. This paper discusses the future development of this design guideline prototype into a rich and interactive website in order to overcome the usability problems and increase the incentive of designers to use them.