Grab Our 9 step new product Development checklist to get to the marketplace quickly with the right product!

by Joe Schappler

This blog post is a 35 minute read

I’d like to share a tool that helps our team—and our clients—drive new product development projects. The following is a little background on how we came to realize that this would be a useful tool in any industrial designer’s product development toolkit.

It all began with a client who needed new product development

We had a client that wanted us to design a product for them in the consumer electronics space. Their products typically have been sold to commercial customers but they felt the technology they developed would be applicable to the consumer space as well in higher annual volumes than they current do. It was a win-win for all was the premise.

They came to Helix and said “Here’s the technology and here’s how we currently package it. We want to add some new consumer-friendly features, but the core technology remains the same. You guys do your magic and design it so it’ll sell to consumers”.

OK, sounds interesting so far, but there were many unknowns from my perspective. I pulled out my typical 9-step new product design checklist and started to uncover what was known and what remained to be discovered.

New Product Development Discovery

We got through the first three checklist items pretty well. They had decided upon “Invader” as an internal project name since they were invading the consumer space for the first time. For project scope, after much discussion they decided we should do everything they would need mechanically up through and including selecting production vendors since they didn’t have experience with consumer product manufacturing. They’d handle the electronic technology design since that’s their core strength. We also successfully managed to get through checklist items 7–9, which were known product specifications, timelines and manufacturing.

Then we began asking questions about who the user is, aesthetic guidelines, and budgets.

And… Crickets.

Where this project got hung up

After multiple questions it became apparent that they were targeting all consumers, and didn’t know any specific or deeper dive demographics beyond the basics. They started throwing out words like “sexy” and “cool” and “modern” when we started asking about aesthetics. Budgeting questions were met with puzzled looks suggesting we were trying to get them to do our estimating. So I moved the question to retail pricing for the product, thinking I could do an ROI on the investment they’d be making with Helix to demonstrate the value we would bring to the project. Again, they weren’t sure yet on what the customer would pay for their slick gadget.

After much more prolonged discussion with minimal resulting information, I suggested they embark upon a design research effort, using us and one of our partner companies that specializes in gathering the voice of the customer.

They agreed and a 2-month research effort got underway.

Although this effort prolonged the timeline and required additional investment, the information discovered provided a clear path for industrial design development and greatly reduced the chance of failure. Feedback was learned from potential end users on features, pricing, aesthetics, demographics and much more pertinent information that took away the subjectivity from the development process and provided a clear and mostly objective plan to deliver a product that would succeed in the marketplace.

Following a process for new product design leads to success

This project turned into a great success for the client, and mostly because we followed our 9-step checklist to learn what is known and what is unknown. That enabled us to put together a comprehensive proposal to address the unknowns and provide a development path toward delivering a product for market success.

If you’re embarking on new product development, this checklist is for you. Download it today.

About Helix Design

Helix Design is an industrial design firm and product design company that delivers creative design and mechanical engineering solutions to companies who need external perspectives combined with practical experience. For samples of our recent work, please visit our industrial design portfolio.