Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition

049 Development Cycle

The stages of product creation: requirements, design, development, and testing.

All products progress sequentially through basic stages of creation. Understanding and using effective practices for each stage allows designers to maximize a product’s probability of success.1

There are four basic stages of creation for all products:

1. Requirements — The result of formal or informal needs analysis. In formal processes, requirements are gathered through market research, customer feedback, focus groups, and usability testing. Informally, design requirements are often derived from direct knowledge or experience. Design requirements are best obtained through controlled interactions between designers and members of the target audience ...