Designing a new product takes curiosity, experimentation, and ingenuity. Beyond functioning well, it needs to be aesthetically pleasing enough to catch the eye of buyers. Before you dig into the process of figuring out the design of a new product, there are some factors you should carefully consider.
Material Supply Chains
Before you design a new project, you will want to make sure you understand where the materials you need come from. Material supply chains can be tricky to navigate because they can be affected by shortages. Be sure to do your research on where the materials you want to build your products with are likely to come from and what the lead time is on placing orders. This will help you understand whether it is feasible to use certain materials reliably in your product.
Design Failure
Before you start designing a new product, you should also be aware of the potential for failure in the design. You will need to build numerous prototypes of the product, and at each stage of the design process look for areas where failure may be possible. Six Sigma tools can help identify potential areas vulnerable to failure, such as the Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis. Learning about these tools for analysis now will save you a lot of time later while building prototypes, so you can accurately assess how to improve each time.
User Research
Before you begin designing a new product, you should also factor user research into your design process as well. User research helps you understand what the market is like for your potential product. It can help you understand how much demand there is in the product space or spaces you are thinking of designing for. If you already have a well-thought-out idea for a product, you can begin to come up with a user profile to understand who a potential user of your product would be. This can help you design a product that will help solve a problem for your user.
Going through the process of designing a product takes creativity and patience. If you are aware of potential hiccups along the way and keep your customer in mind, you can design a product that is feasible to create, scale, and sell. Flexibility, as you get to know your potential product and potential customers better, will help you build a useful, well-designed product.
With a little help, a good idea can turn into an amazing product. Plan for success with help from Framework 4 Freedom!