An Idea Support Method and a Tool for New Product Development

Abstract

In order to develop a new product, we have to create more valuable user experiences in the product. The value of the product is able to satisfy the goals of stake holders of the product. Creating the value depends greatly on developers’ inspirations and ideas. However, it is hard for humans to have good inspirations and ideas constantly. Therefore, in order to produce such ideas constantly, we need an engineering method. When we support developers to create new ideas systematically and continuously, we have to solve some problems. In order to solve these problems, we developed a method that was integrated into our empirical knowledge with KAOS, persona analysis, scenario analysis, etc. As a result, it becomes possible to analyze the user experiences based on their roles and, to add functions that improve the user experiences. In order to validate the effectiveness of the method, we applied the method to an actual product development. We also developed a tool for the method. We close this paper with the results of its validation and our future work.