The diversity of functions and the complexity of interface which consumer products came to encompass have changed the characteristics of product design develpment processes. Especially in the concept generation process which is one of the most crucial steps over all processes, the conventional 2D drawings turned out to have limits in visualizing the complex interface on products precisely. New methods other than 2-dimensionals such as drawings and figures are emerging to explicate how users access and interact to the product. The Virtual Prototyping technology is one of the concept generation and explication methods among the newly developed tools. As idea sketches are to product ideation methods, VP is to interaction ideation methods.
However, designers without programing knowledge bases which the VP technology requires prove to have difficulties in modeling with that tool. Moreover, the current VP tools do not satisfy the functions which product design processes require, such as usability assessment, since they were not developed only for product designers.
The thesis purports to propose a new VP tool which is appropriate for product design processes