Pitch Perfect: The Investigation of Presentation Quality Effect on Product Concept Evaluation

Abstract

In New Product Development (NPD) process, designers and engineers work together to create product innovation. The concept selection stage is part of the early design process, in which stakeholders can come together to decide which idea is appropriate for further development. During the selection phase, the designers or engineers pitch their ideas to an audience, while the audience, who are investors, consumers, management, or peer designers, evaluate the idea based on the presentation. During this simple process, the audiences’ perception of the product idea is often influenced by the presentation quality. In this dissertation, the author examines if the quality of presentation can promote or overshadow the value of product ideas. With 3 different product ideas and 3 different presentations that differ in quality, this project demonstrates how a moderate idea that is presented well, can be seen as better than excellent ideas that are poorly presented. In addition, this study examines if the expertise of the viewer can weaken the presentation effect. The results indicate that the expertise on product design strengthens the presentation effect, yet whether product experts give higher scores or lower scores to the high-quality presentations is inconclusive.