Visualisations as tools for product design are very useful in supporting engineers in their tasks. Product design is a complex task and features interdisciplinarity and communication across departments. Visualisations can help to increase product design performance under these challenges. The integrated PKT- Approach for developing modular product families, Radikal Forenkling via Design or Complexity Management by DSMs and Node-Link-Graphs are just a few examples of methods for product design that utilize visualisations as important tools for design support. Much research has been done in order to develop such visualisation concepts and on how these can be used in engineering design. In this paper however the focus lies on how design researchers proceed when developing a visualisation concept meant as a tool for engineering design, what problems they encountered and what need for support they have for the development of the visualisations. Fourteen cases of PhD projects at three universities have been analysed by document study and interviews. The results build a foundation for a future support that can help to develop effective visualisation concepts as tools in product design.
