IDEA GENERATION AND EVALUATION
Identifying A Powerful Market Insight.
When someone has an idea for a new product, it is rare that their first idea is the one that ends up as the final product and in most cases, the end product is a far cry from what was first envisaged. Our goal is always to start the creative process from an insight. For example, 'elderly people need a way to put on socks without bending down.' Once the insight has been validated, the creative process generates many ideas to solve the problem which are then evaluated resulting in the identification of one, two or three approaches to explore further.
PRODUCT CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Growing An Idea Into A Product
Building on the inventor's original idea, and the idea generation stage, we will work with you to improve aesthetics, functionality and reduce complexity so as to minimise manufacturing costs and maximise consumer benefits. During this process we will produce hand sketches and CAD models of the agreed approaches to enable you to visualise the end product and 'get a feel' for it's size, shape and function. This is an iterative process that normally requires research, creativity and a lot of communication between the client and the design team.
PROOF OF PRINCIPLE (POP) PROTOTYPING
Will The Idea Work?
Once the concept has been developed and tested in 3D, it is time to make physical models in order to see if the design will actually work. For a large product, we might model different parts of the mechanism separately before putting everything together. This stage is basic, low cost modelling and often reveals design or material weaknesses as well as how people actually use the product as opposed to how it was intended to be used. After changes and revisions, sufficient information has normally been gathered for us to draft a detailed design brief which is then sent to the client for approval.
DESIGN BRIEF
The Agreed Scope And Deliverables
The Design Brief pulls together all of the outputs from the ideation and concept development stages along with the information gathered during the patent/IP search, industry and competitor analyses and initial market research. It is a list of all of the criteria that the product must meet based on market insights and industry research. In the same way as you wouldn't ask an Architect to design a house without a full list of your requirements, you cannot ask a product designer to design a product without a detailed list of deliverables and performance criteria. The design brief includes instructions on aesthetics, ergonomics, functionality, cost, manufacturability, target market and target price point.