A decision support system for making product design decisions. The approach uses conjoint analysis to identify the relation between the attributes possessed by a product and the desirability of that product, for each of a set of potential customers. In a second step, the level of market demand for any potential product is estimated by aggregating the individual preference models across customers. An optimization routine then reveals the most desirable product (or products) in terms of some specific management objective (e.g., maximizing incremental market share). This objective may take into account the presence of specific other products in the market and/or any cannibalization effect of the new product on specific existing products. Finally, the market segment most attracted to this optimal new product is identified.