Should your Company use a Product Design Team for new Product Development?
In the 1990s, product design, often called industrial design, began to take off and gain prominence. Companies realized the importance of new product design and how it impacts customer loyalty with the advent of new inventions such as household appliances and cars.
The practice of industrial design has existed for over 30 years, and it is easy to forget that it continues to evolve. The best way to build new products that customers will love is to work with a product design team, and companies can choose different options if they need product design help.
Define Product Designer
A product designer develops new products that can be sold to customers by a business. Finding out what the customer's pain points are and addressing them is what it is all about.
Product Designer Workflow
The goal of a new product designer is to create products that fill gaps that other products are unable to fill. A product designer, after mapping out the specific pain points that their product will address, will figure out how best to create it. Once the product has been created, tested, and polished, it can be launched.
Product designers are responsible for more than just appearance and packaging; they also oversee the entire innovation process.
Rather than just focusing on the product itself, the best product designers consider the end user as well. The easiest way to fail at product design is to design one with great sound, but no sales. If you want to ensure that your product serves an authentic need, you should develop it specifically for a particular audience.
Product Design Team Choosing Process
Design thinking means the focus of the product design team is on the end user from the outset. People cannot live without products designed by good designers based on their needs and innovation. Hire an innovative team that understands what makes a business successful and thinks outside the box.
Product Design Team Workflow
Research
A product design team's first task in the design phase is to research your product's potential users. Additionally, they will investigate their competitor's products to determine what they lack. A design team needs to understand the audience to create a better design. As a result, it is the most prolonged and critical phase of the process.
Target
Research determines the audience's specific pain points or problems during the research stage. Some companies addressed this pain point by introducing grocery delivery services, which address consumers' need for more time for grocery shopping. It is essential for the design team to be able to identify the specific customer challenges that the product will address prior to proceeding with the design.
Design
The design stage is one step in the product design process after identifying pain points a product will be designed to resolve them. As it is a creative process, different agencies or individuals may use different approaches at this point. As designers visualize the end to end experience of the product and its new features, they typically brainstorm, wireframe, and sketch.
Prototype
When the product design team has decided upon a new product direction, a prototype can be built. It can take the form of a simple sketch that illustrates the features of the product or it can be something tangible, like a clickable prototype that allows users to interact with the product. It is essential to create prototypes so that you can get real feedback from users before you build the final product.
Test
A prototype needs to be tested with users who match the product's target audience. Testing will allow the design team to determine if the product needs improvement or if it has flaws. From a few user interviews, you can also gain actionable insight into the product.
Refinement
In refinement, the product's problems are addressed through tweaks or more comprehensive redesigns, depending on the results of the testing.
Launch & Analysis
Product launches are designed to be efficient and bug free. As soon as the product has been launched, the product design team will begin the analysis process. In the aftermath of the product's release, the team will assess how well it performs.
If the product did not meet the needs of the user, the product design team would figure out what went wrong. Whether or not the finished product succeeds, the agency will take the data into account when developing a new iteration of the design.
Difference between In House Product Design & Outsourcing
The internet is the perfect platform for you whether you are a company that has already made its mark in the market or if you are just a new entrepreneur with an innovative product idea you are dying to get off the ground. Outsourcing or hiring an internal product design team is one of the most critical decisions you will need to make.
The process of launching a product is challenging; not only are you forced to decide on the budget, but also you must consider the designers' experience.
Low Cost
The decision of whether to build an in-house product design team can be complicated by factors such as creating a product development team, hiring a project manager, evaluating the market, coordinating manufacturing, and learning the skills necessary to do so. In order to build a cost effective product design team, you need to recruit and train essential skills once you have assembled the team.
As an example, third party companies have teams with experience from previous similar projects. As well as industrial designers and mechanical engineers, supply chain experts, and quality control and regulatory personnel, these firms hire individuals with a wide range of talents and backgrounds.
However, finding contractors who are dedicated and committed could be a challenge. To achieve your new product design goals, you may want to consider hiring a freelance product design team, or a freelance design expert.
The product design stage could only last a few months, so hiring a full time team is not necessary due to the need for various backgrounds.
Expertise & Experience
An evaluation of the project's technological feasibility is included in the package. In many third party companies, a Project Roadmap, a Product Specification Document, and a Market Requirement Document are provided in an Ideation Package.
It may seem straightforward to find software, hardware, and mechanical engineers. However, finding people capable of developing prototypes and considering the project's complexity and cost is difficult.
Hardware products & startups fail because of inadequate planning and budgeting. Hence, outsourcing product design could be a cost effective option.
Process Development
In the world of product design and development, chaos is the best word to describe the situation.
There may be a need to put out the fire, and the launch of the product may be delayed. In order to be the best firefighter, you need to develop a process that has been tested and developed properly.
To learn more, watch the following video tutorial.
Video Source: Product Innovation Academy
In order to ensure that everything is noticed and quality is integrated into the general design, the product design team has years of experience testing and working with operations.
