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Despite a growing understanding of product design and its importance, many companies’ design functions are still not keeping up.
The failure rate for new product designs can be as high as 90% in some sectors.
Many companies more often than not, have these big new product design ideas wrapped around their thoughts, they see a very big picture already and become very excited. Because of this excitement, they are eager to jump right into the execution of the new product design without laying down a proper structure.
This has led to quite a bogus amount of new product design failures.
So, here’s our advice for you. It'll be very helpful in your journey towards attaining sustainable growth as a startup or established business.
Product design excellence basically based on designs that are innovative, aesthetically appealing, and highly usable is increasingly vital to success.
After you’ve identified an opportunity and generated a New Product Design idea to fill it, follow these five steps to optimize your new product design’s chance of success:
- Measure the opportunity.
- Develop a winning product strategy.
- Follow a smart, collaborative design process.
- Use the right tools.
- Purposefully engage with expert partners.
Let’s begin with,
Measure the opportunity.
After all, is it worth delving into?
So, you’ve got a new product design idea? That’s fantastic.
The next thing should not be jumping right into the process of execution, you have to sit back, define the problem you’re looking to solve with your new product design, and determine if it’s actually worth solving (i.e. if your target audience really needs a solution to that problem and is willing to pay in exchange).
Here are a few questions to ask yourself before delving in,
- Do you offer a solution to a problem that is not currently being solved?
- Will your new product perform better than the competition?
- Will your new product comes with features not currently on the market?
- Does your new product proffer a lower-cost solution?
Supplying answers to these questions frankly will help you, and give you the heads up needed to either proceed with this idea or back out.
Develop a winning product strategy.
Creating a winning product strategy is so crucial to the success of every new product design.
It’s one thing to have your new product design all beautifully pictured in your mind and the vision looking so great, It’s another to have it face the hurdles that come with reality and turn out something else.
How you have the journey to that big picture all mapped out in your mind may not be the case when faced with real-life scenarios.
It’s therefore important to develop a product strategy as it gives room for various considerations regarding real-life scenarios and how to come out tops when faced with them.
The journey to every great new product starts with a product design strategy.
(Click here: Steps to creating that winning Product Design Strategy)
Follow a smart, collaborative design process.
You’ve got your winning product design strategy in place, it’s time you got kicking. In developing your product design, it’s absolutely essential for the success of your new product that you follow a smart and collaborative design process.
Here are 6 steps to guide you through your design process,
- Define your product design Goal & Unique selling point.
- Conduct User Research and analysis.
- Create a Wireframe: Sketch the layout.
- Develop the Prototype: Prepares the user interface from the wireframe.
- Complete the design from the prototype with colors, images, etc.
- Testing, Testing, Testing: Get feedback from volunteer users (Usability Testing), use analytic tools and heatmaps, do A/B testing, and measure the success of our choices.
To get the best out of your new product design idea, ensure the process is user-centered, apply design thinking and execute it as a non-linear, iterated process, do user research to design with the people, not just for them, and finally test and test all through the design process to minimize the margin for error.
Use the right tools.
As Vishen Lakhiani says,
“It's about using the right tools, with the right triggers, within a proper marketing framework”
As you walk your way towards that new product, It’s also essential that the right tools be employed all through the design process.
There is a full ecosystem of software tools available out there to meet designers’ needs from early concept generation, product idea development, and design visualization through to digital or physical modeling.
When the wrong tools are employed for certain aspects of the process, there’s most likely to be a delay in design actualization, an increase in production time, and money spent.
Well-equipped design experts use specialized tools to visualize and compare designs in a “close to reality” environment. Some of us even use Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality environments to visualize designs, thereby increasing the rate at which success is achieved with our projects.
Purposefully engage with expert partners.
One final piece of advice that will guarantee and help you in attaining sustainable growth before, during, and after the actualization of your new product design idea is to purposefully engage with experts in the product design and management field.
Let them help you identify core competencies that are strategically important to your organization, and use that in creating a unique selling point for your new product design concept.
To wrap it all up,
In today’s highly competitive marketplace, product design is only becoming more important. And companies are consistently sourcing novel product design ideas to penetrate the market, stay ahead of competitors and gain the advantage of new consumers around the globe.
As much as coming up with novel ideas is great, one must also be equipped with the right way to go about it as highlighted in this blog, and the right guidance from experts with years of experience in the industry so you can indeed work your way towards that big vision!
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