Consumer Product Development Tips
Product design is truly challenging. It is mainly because most people are not product designers, but it is their needs that the designer has to heavily consider. Most people, especially clients, may have a vision for a product, but they cannot fully describe its details, only its general functions and objectives. Today’s top industrial design firms know how to translate a client’s vision and turn it into reality, i.e., an actual product. They also keep in mind the client’s (and its target users) requirements and gauge whether the idea is feasible for production or not. There are several considerations when developing a product. These include: 1. The product needs to be useful. Among other things, the product in mind should be useful. It needs to have a purpose that its target market can utilize to address specific problems. The term “to be useful” can be tricky, though. It can be useful in the eyes of the client or creator, but not to its target users. This has been a major caveat for many products,
which, after being developed and released to the market, have found themselves brushed aside because their “usefulness” was too complex by their intended market. Hence, the product to be developed should consider how it is going to be utilized by its market. Beyond addressing a problem, its functions should also be easy for the user to handle. 2. Function over features. It can be really tempting to add a lot of features to a product, especially when these add-ons are feasible under DFM. However, while features are important, the product’s function should be the top reason for development. Product features should support the product’s function, otherwise the product itself is considered useless. You may have added WiFi support to a cleaning gadget, but if the gadget itself cannot perform cleaning functions effectively, then it has failed its purpose to its market. 3. Stay focused. The overall goal for your product is for people to buy it. This means it has to enter a competitive market environment. With that said, you may want to concentrate on a specific consumer need in order to offer the best way for consumers to enjoy it. You don’t have to design a product that offers everything; rather, focus on designing a product that can do one thing the best. 4. Be realistic. You don’t have to aspire for a product that aims to bring world peace or eradicate hunger. No, that’s not what product development is for. If your product isn’t addressing or solving a problem, then it may end up as an artwork, or worse, a piece of junk. You may want to develop a product that addresses and solves real life problems. It’s already hard to offer a solution to an already existing problem, how much more telling people about a problem they don’t know about. The design process should then start with a specific problem in mind, then expand from there in terms of solution and control. The top industrial design firms have an eye for dissecting situations and see whether they are actual problems the product can address or not. 5. Aesthetics are important too.
Consumer products need not just be useful and practical; they have to look and feel good too. People are visual users. They trust a product that they find visually and ergonomically appealing even if it does not offer the best function or use. A consumer product should then meet the users’ aesthetic standards, so that it can be purchased, used, and embraced by its market.