A product design method based on design-element informatization

In order to reduce the information chaos of product design, we present the main motions of Design-Element based product design that we call it DE-PD. Different from traditional product design process composed of function, style, or customer requirements etc.al, DE-PD is driven by the knowledge and information flows in product design iteration. In DE-PD, the product is composed of Design-Elements (DE) which is the integration of related knowledge and information. After discussing the definition and information construct of DE, we present the iteration of DE based product design. To evaluate the method, a design case of beach motorcycle with limit mount of DEs is conceived. Evaluation results show that DE-PD is a promising approach for product design informatization.