A dual perspective on validation during early development projects - insights from literature and industry

Many developments, such as the Amazon Fire Phone and Microsoft Zune, fail in the market, often due to addressing non-existent needs or providing no added value. Therefore, it is necessary to validate these needs and benefits in the early phases of development projects. One way to do this is by using a product profile that models needs and benefits and makes them accessible for validation. According to the literature, there are nine challenges and four fields of action for developing a design support in validating these product profiles. These fields of action range from stakeholder integration, method selection, and prototyping to the interpretation of results. This publication evaluates and describes the challenges and fields of action derived through expert interviews and literature research. A total of 28 publications were analyzed, and eight expert interviews were conducted.