The aim of the DQI systems was to ensure that the M4I's indicators of construction process were balanced by an assessment of the building as a product.
[2] The Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex was commissioned to develop the indicator tool, which was launched as an online resource on 1 October 2003.
[3] In 2004 the DQI received recognition from the British Institute of Facilities Management for the role of involving users in the design process.
The criteria and the method of assessment, which though unacknowledged is a simple form of multi-attribute utility analysis, remained inaccessible to design teams and their clients unless they employed a facilitator licensed to use it.
[7] DQI applies a structured approach to assess design quality based on the model by the architect Vitruvius, the Roman author of the earliest surviving theoretical treatise on building in Western culture, who described design in terms of utilitas, firmitas and venustas, often translated as commodity, firmness and delight.