Monthly Archives: April 2012

Below are a few tips to consider when designing a product. These tips are based on years of experience from the Leardon team and are overall the best high-level tips to take into consideration as you begin your entrepreneurial venture into new product development.

A good product development team consists of individuals from different disciplines with diverse goals, objectives, and perspectives. When at the stage of designing a product, be sure to choose a group of talented individuals that are able to compromise for the success of the project.

The product designers and engineers on a project are key to a successful product design but typically have different objectives for the project outcome. Engineers tend to enjoy the “objective” goals of product development such as product reliability, quality, dimensional details, and manufacturing processes while product designers tend to focus more on the “subjective” aspects of product development such as customer profile, product design features, human factors, and the user interface. When embarking on the initial stages of product design, it is important that all team members work together to achieve the goals of the project. Early in the product development life cycle, consider these three tips when starting the product design phase of the product.

Think Simple
There is no reason to complicate any problem and product design development is no exception. The best product designs are typically those that form a simple connection between function and design. If a designer overcomplicates the design, the customer will be alienated and the resulting product will not do well in the market. The goal of a good product design is to pull in the customers with a nonthreatening design that seems inviting and easy to use.

When initiating the design phase of the product, be sure that the design team thinks “simplicity” so that the design concepts, user interface, and human factors can be easily implemented later down the product development life cycle.

Benchmark
It isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel and in fact sometimes customers would prefer that you don’t. It is a good idea when starting out on the product design path to review and research all the competitor products on the market and gauge which design features make the product successful and which resulted in failure in the market. Obviously, improve the successful features and avoid the failures.

When benchmarking new products, evaluate how the similar features similar are implemented in product design and then determine how new features and functions can be implemented into the product design. Remember not to change things that are familiar and mainstream for customers. For example, it would be a bad idea to try and reinvent how the automobile gear shifter is designed and integrated into the interior design. Customers are too familiar with the current embodiment and would probably reject any major design changes.

Prototype and Test
Once the first release of a product design is “ready for the world to see”, it is best to prototype and test the design prior to releasing the design to the engineering team for detailed engineering in CAD. There are many ways to prototype the design, including foam models, rapid prototyping, computer simulations, or functional prototypes. When testing the prototype, show it to people unfamiliar but interested in the product. The test can be done through focus groups, informal studies, and on-line surveys. It is best to interview as many people as possible to be sure to get a large amount of feedback from a diverse group. Once this feedback is received, implement this back into the product design to improve the design to meet as many requirements as possible.

If you are interested in showing off your work, learning more, or posting topics for discussion in the industrial and product design community, you should visit Product Design Forums.

Need more information? Please contact us with any questions or contact me directly at joseph.donoghue ( at ) leardon.com