Design to Connect is a cooperation between Howest University, Industrial Design Center and GhentUniversity, Laboratory Soete. The aim of the research is to create a methodology to support (industrial)designers to design mechanical connections and joining methods considering mechanical and user centredfactors in the total product life. This paper gives a short overview of the most important existing methods,guidelines and tools to design and select mechanical connections. It also situate the

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... arch project andits potential added value for product designers to the existing methods. Finally a basic framework fordeveloping the new methodology is created: Design to Connect (D2C).