The confrontation between customers and performers is the topic of a huge number of stories and memes. And in industrial design, everything is exactly the same as in any other creative field. The problem is always the same: the customer does not fully understand the essence of the contractor’s work, and the contractor cannot understand the customer’s pains and goals and competently explain how the work will be structured.
This is where misunderstanding and mistrust are born, which can cause the project to stall, drown in endless approvals. This will inevitably affect the comfort of work, and the quality of the product. As a result, the customer will be disappointed in the work, and the designer will lose an interesting order. To make sure that this does not happen is also the task of an industrial designer.
Any product that has successfully entered the market and taken its share is the result of close cooperation between the customer, a whole team of specialists and an industrial designer who helps them hear and understand each other. Product design is not only a reflection of its internal properties and functions, it is part of the company’s self-presentation, a reflection of the vision of its founders. As well as a reflection of the habits and desires of the buyer. An industrial designer synchronizes the interests of the customer, the user, and the engineers, creating a design that takes into account the priorities of each party and builds a balance between them.
We will try to tell you what exactly and how work on industrial design consists of, and why developing a successful design is a complex task that requires time and effort.
How good design is born
When an artist is working on a complex and large-scale canvas, he has to constantly change the distance: sometimes to get close to work on the details, and sometimes to move further away to assess the composition and the amount of work to be done. In industrial design, everything works in much the same way.
We are talking about the Double Diamond development method, which is the basis of our development methodology, which we will discuss below. It combines steps that require maximum open-mindedness, both in research and conceptualization, as well as steps that require maximum concentration.
In the diagram, it looks like this:
The Double Diamond model was invented by the British Design Council in the mid-2000s as a simple way to describe how designers go from a chaos of ideas to a working product in practice. Almost immediately, it began to be put into practice and it proved its effectiveness in dozens of design studios around the world.
The first stage is Discover
The research stage is the foundation of the project, which directly affects the accuracy of decisions and risk reduction at the next stages. Industrial designers get acquainted with the task, communicate with the customer, collect any available information related to the future product: about business, market, competitors, production constraints, price, tasks, standards, dimensions… Not only information from open sources is collected, surveys, experiments, research, and interviews are conducted. The main thing is to study the customer’s vision, goals and plans, find out the user’s needs, what worries him and what can solve his key problem, production capabilities and the feasibility of achieving goals.
Every little thing can be useful, but a small grain of information often leads to an insight or a breakthrough idea that guarantees an advantage in the market or can reduce costs and increase profitability. At this stage, we also determine what problem the product should solve and whether this problem is correctly formulated.
On the contrary, neglecting the research stage often leads to losses or even failure. It’s like going to the forest at night without a map. The chance that you will get on the right path is never zero, but you are unlikely to want to take the risk.
Sometimes research can lead to the cancellation of a project when it turns out that it is simply not profitable to continue working. For example, if the niche is occupied and there is no point in bringing another product to the market. This is also a result – the money that could have been wasted will be directed to other, more promising projects.
Two similar mistakes often occur during research. The first, fatal one, is complete ignorance. The customer, confident that he has a complete picture of the market, can insist on skipping the study, “we have all the necessary information and no competitors, do as we say!”. Most likely, this strategy will lead to the failure of the project.
The second mistake is when the customer does not meet halfway and does not give the designers the necessary information, does not answer questions. In this case, the customer’s representatives are not involved in the project, and in vain. If you know your market, your product, your competitors, share this information, answer questions in detail and honestly. This will speed up the development process and help avoid mistakes.
The second stage is definition (Define)
At this stage, the collected data is structured, requirements and criteria for a successful product are formed. Having studied and structured the entire array of information, designers dismiss the secondary and form the key requirements, limitations, directions and criteria for successful product design.
Like skilled gardeners, industrial designers choose which branches are worth removing and which are worth saving so as not to waste valuable resources. The main thing is to formulate the criteria for successful design and the basic requirements for it.
It is important to strike a balance here: to cover the topic broadly, but not to drown, to formulate tasks and restrictions clearly, as specifically as possible, without vague definitions. The team should work as a single organism, with a clear understanding of the task, and the customer can be part of this organism to speed up the process.
The third stage is Develop
After the maximum focus, we think big again, this time in order to gain maximum freedom in the process of finding solutions. Rapid methods are used to generate and validate ideas, from sketches and rough 3D to basic layouts that allow for early detection of errors. Sometimes simple sketches are enough for this, sometimes you have to build full-fledged three-dimensional models, each project is unique and designers select the most effective methods.
The goal at this stage is to approve the conceptual direction of the product design together with the customer. 3 different concepts are developed, from which the customer chooses one, and sometimes a new one is created, taking the strengths of several previous ones. When the concept is chosen, the development phase is completed.
The fourth stage is Deliver
At this stage, the selected concept is polished and detailed, gradually turning into a ready-made design solution and a set of materials that can be transferred to the customer’s engineers and contractors for further engineering development. It includes a 3D model, a final presentation with visualizations and a description of the design in all the details necessary for transfer to engineering and production.
An important point that applies to all the steps of the Double Diamond method is iterative and cyclical. If at some stage we realize that the data do not add up, that there is an error in the conclusions, we step back and go through the previous stage again until we are sure that the chosen course is correct.
How it is implemented in USAEV DESIGN
It all starts with your request, after which, if necessary, we can sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Next, we offer you to fill out a brief — on your own or together with us in the format of an online interview. Based on it, we form a commercial offer with a description of the stages, deadlines and budget. After agreeing on the commercial offer, we send you a contract with an appendix and a brief, and after they are signed, we immediately start working on the project.
The beauty of Double Diamond is that it is easy to adapt to the needs of any project. In our studio, we rethought the development process and settled on the following structure:
1. Concept development is a stage during which we immerse ourselves in the task, conducting interviews with the customer, studying the market and competitors’ solutions, target audience, use cases in order to formulate conclusions and hypotheses, on the basis of which we work on design concepts – sketches, initial sketches in 3D and quick 3D visualizations.
Then we draw up the results of the research and the developed concepts in a presentation and demonstrate them to the customer. As a result, the customer chooses one of the concepts or shares feedback and asks to show alternative proposals. Be that as it may, the result is the choice of one specific concept, as well as the formulation of a list of design improvements, which we will make in the next stage.
It is worth noting that for especially large-scale and responsible projects, we divide the “Design Analytics” into a separate stage, as it is done in the canonical 4D method, but practice shows that in most projects this is not required.
2. Design elaboration — when the main form and style are determined, the stage of elaboration begins. We work out proportions, roundings, ergonomics, colors, graphics, surface textures and other details. To check proportions, ergonomics and interaction, we use VR and 3D printing, this allows us to identify and correct shortcomings before the start of engineering work. The result is a detailed final presentation and a 3D model of the design, which is transferred to the engineering and design development.
3. Author’s support – at this stage, we accompany the process of prototyping and engineering work in order to bring the product to implementation, taking into account the real capabilities and limitations of specific industries.
For example, if the original design has more sloping edges, but the factory selected for production cannot implement them, we change the geometry, trying to maintain the purity of the lines and the original concept. And if engineers have already built their model, then we help them make changes to it in such a way that they do not damage the perceived quality of the future product.
The final solution seeks to preserve the idea and aesthetics, while remaining technologically feasible within the selected production.
In addition, we can help with graphic solutions, packaging design, visualization, and animation for marketing purposes to simplify the implementation of the product and help maintain the overall approach and quality at all stages of the user’s acquaintance with the product.
This is how a successful product is obtained – at the intersection of the customer’s desires, information from research and the capabilities of the manufacturer. In this process, the industrial designer plays the role of a mediator, balancing the interests of all parties to the project by working with the form, structure, and visual logic of the product so that the product enters the market holistic and competitive.
Are you planning to bring a new product to the market and want to avoid pitfalls? Write to us – we will help.
And if you have something to say about what you have read, we will be glad to comment in a special post of the telegram channel.
