Design-driven software development approaches have long been praised for their many benefits on the development process and the resulting software system. This paper discusses a step towards assessing these benefits by proposing an experimental study that involves a design-driven, tool-based development approach. This study raises various questions including whether a design-driven approach improves software quality and whether the tool-based approach improves productivity. In examining these questions, we explore specific issues such as the approaches that should be involved in the comparison, the metrics that should be used, and the experimental framework that is required.