Design Roadmapping: A Framework and Case Study on Planning Development of High-Tech Products in Silicon Valley - read online free

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Miles

Design roadmapping aligns product planning with user experience needs by extending existing product and technology roadmapping processes. The framework addresses three observed organizational needs: focusing on customer and user experiences beyond features, engaging designers early in planning, and enabling rapid response to environmental change. It supports project prioritization and selection by aggregating design experience elements over a timeline that links key user needs to deliverable products, services, and systems, illustrated through a corporate innovation lab case study.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time4 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Design roadmapping framework and rationale

Related research on product and technology roadmapping

Need for design-driven and interactive approaches

Euiyoung Kim1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Berkeley Institute of Design, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 e-mail: [euiyoungkim@berkeley.edu](euiyoungkim@berkeley.edu) Jaewoo Chung Samsung Research America, 665 Clyde Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94043 e-mail: [jaewoo@media.mit.edu](jaewoo@media.mit.edu) Sara Beckman Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 e-mail: [beckman@berkeley.edu](beckman@berkeley.edu) Alice M. Agogino Fellow ASME Department of Mechanical Engineering, Berkeley Institute of Design, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 e-mail: [agogino@berkeley.edu](agogino@berkeley.edu) Design Roadmapping: A Framework and Case Study on Planning Development of High-Tech Products in Silicon Valley We propose a framework for design roadmapping that parallels existing product roadmapping and technology roadmapping processes. It leverages three needs we have observed in organizations as they use existing roadmapping processes: (1) to focus on development of customer and user experiences (UX), not just on features; (2) to increase engagement of designers early in the planning process; and (3) to provide a means for rapidly responding to changes in the environment. Design roadmapping is an attempt to reconcile differences that arise when customer/user needs are not considered simultaneously with technology choices. The proposed design roadmapping process assists project prioritization and selection. The process aggregates design experience elements along a timeline that associates key user needs with the products, services, and/or systems the organization wishes to deliver. To illustrate the design roadmapping process, we conducted a case study in which we applied the design roadmapping process to projects undertaken by a large corporation’s innovation lab located in research centers in San Francisco and Mountain View, CA, in partnership with corporate stakeholders located in Asia. The ﬁve-step design roadmapping procedure is provided along with detailed information. The decisions from the design roadmapping process have been incorporated into the company’s commercial plans. Key ﬁndings in this corporate case study bolster the positive impact of design roadmapping in moving strategic thinking from a technology/ feature-driven process to one that is design/experience-driven. It shows how ﬁrms might weigh choices between user needs, design principles, and technological innovation.[DOI: 10.1115/1.4034221] Introduction Product and technology roadmapping processes have been discussed for several decades in the academic literature as a tool for product planning [1–4] and have been used effectively in industry to guide the interactive development of products and technologies across an organization [5] . Phaal and Muller [6] describe roadmapping as an iterative process of ideation, divergence, convergence, and synthesis, and introduce an architecture for roadmapping with multiple hierarchical layers. V€ah€aniitty et al. [7] suggest the following steps for creating and updating product roadmaps: deﬁne strategic vision, scan the environment, revise and distill the product vision, estimate the product life cycle, and evaluate the planned development efforts. Portfolio planning, of which product and technology roadmapping are a part, aims to align the organization’s investments to maximize returns, create strategic ﬁt, and balance risk [1] . Roadmapping, in turn, lays out those investments over time. Projects from the portfolio plan or roadmap are then fed into new product development processes such as the stage-gate process [8,9] and waterfall development processes [10] . Creating product family maps that leverage a series of platforms (product, technology, brand, etc.) over time allows a company to create a series of successive product concepts with new features and enhanced capabilities [11] . The main focus of these activities i

FAQs

What problem does the design roadmapping framework address?

It reconciles differences that occur when customer or user needs are not considered alongside technology choices, enabling better project prioritization and selection.

What three organizational needs does the framework leverage?

It focuses on customer/user experiences, increases early designer engagement in planning, and provides a way to respond rapidly to environmental changes.

How does the case study validate the design roadmapping process?

A five-step design roadmapping procedure was applied to innovation lab projects, and resulting decisions were incorporated into the company’s commercial plans, showing positive impact from technology/feature-driven to design/experience-driven thinking.

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Miles