Product Design: How to Create Consistently Successful Products?

If you want to launch your own project or develop your current project and come up with distinctive products and compete in the labor market strongly, you should focus on the product design process because it is the key to success in the fiercely competitive market. But how do you start designing and developing your own products? What are the stages and steps that the product design process must go through in order to produce distinctive products that are successful and popular with customers? In this article, we will explain everything related to the stages of product selection and design from A to Z.

What does product design mean?

Before the advent of huge factories and long production chains that produced thousands of products simultaneously, products were made by hand and individually and were therefore very expensive. But after the increase in demand for different products, the development of the purchasing power of individuals and the emergence of machines and factories, it became possible to manufacture a single basic “mold” or “model” for products and then copy it through the manufacturing and production process.

The process responsible for creating that “model” is called the product design process, and thus product design or what is known as Product Design is the process of creating, designing and producing new products or developing previous products so that they achieve specific goals and avoid common problems and errors.

The product design process includes four main steps or stages: seizing opportunities, identifying problems and developing appropriate solutions to those problems in the form of products, and finally evaluating and analyzing the success of those products in solving problems and surveying customers' opinions about them.

Steps and stages of product design and development

The product design process passes through a series of systematic steps and strategies, each of which has its importance and role in the success of the project, as follows:

1. Determine what the product is

It makes sense, before starting the production and design phase of any commodity or product, to ask yourself the following questions: What is the purpose of the product we are going to manufacture? What will the product offer to customers? And what problems will it solve? And how will it be different from other products?

Inspired by these questions, you will be able to seize opportunities in the labor market, which is the first essential step in the product design process. It is good at this stage to see customer opinions and suggestions about the same products that you want to design or develop, through popular e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, and others. User feedback on these platforms will be the primary source of information that can be invested in designing a different product that offers innovative solutions to the problems customers have with competing products.

It must form a clear picture about the product you want to design, and the goals you want to achieve from that product, otherwise the other steps of the design process will be unstable and there is a high probability of the project’s failure, or at best its inability to compete strongly in the labor market, and as it is said “Imagining the project without implementing it is a dream, but implementing the project without imagining it would be a nightmare.”

2. Do research about the product

Studying the extent to which potential customers are interested in the product and surveying their opinion about the prototype is one of the cornerstones of success in the product design process. You may draw a positive and successful image in your mind, but you will be surprised by an unsatisfactory turnout. There are a few ways in which you can seek customer feedback, including:

Interviews: It is a very successful method, although it consumes a lot of time and perhaps money, but the ideas that you will get from your future clients will greatly contribute to laying a successful design and a solid foundation for your product.

Digital surveys: Another great way to study customer opinions about the product you are planning to launch. Through digital surveys, you can collect a large amount of data and information in a short period at low costs compared to direct customer interviews, but the only challenge is the inability to measure the extent of customer interaction and response to designing the future product in a realistic and real way as in the interviews.

Market study: It is one of the main steps in the product design process as well, and it includes analyzing and evaluating competitors and analyzing their products with their pros and cons, in an attempt to gain the positives in designing your product and avoid the negatives.

3. Idea generation

After studying the market and surveying customers' opinions, the stage of generating ideas begins. It is a good idea at this stage to meet with the design team members and possibly the investors and project stakeholders in a quiet place with all the auxiliary tools and supplies such as computers, display equipment, etc.

Brain storming takes place in this stage, which is the stage of putting the available ideas about product design on the table and reviewing the pros and cons of each proposal. During the idea generation stage it will be very useful to perform the following operations:

Imagine the user's journey with the product

What is meant here is to lay out a blueprint for the customer’s experience with the product, starting from buying it to how to use it and then how to maintain it, in addition to the problems that may arise to the customer and the things that he may need while using the product in various natural and even abnormal conditions, in other words, imagine yourself customer and that you have a problem and need a product to solve it.

Here is an example of this fan products. Everyone knows the traditional use, but imagine yourself the customer, for example, you may need to move the fan frequently from one place to another within the house, then you may think of providing the fan with a convenient transportation mechanism and perhaps an internal battery to solve the problem of connecting the fan to the electricity wired, for example.

Make an integrated plan

The next step is to develop an integrated blueprint for all specifications included in the product. Ask yourself the following questions: Does the product include all the features a customer might need? Is there room to develop the product in the future without having to replace it completely? Can the customer use the product for things different from the main purpose of using it and will this affect the efficiency of the product and its performance in its main mission? After making this chart, review it carefully, as you may want to add or remove a specific feature in the product.

4. Building design

After generating ideas and defining the features that should be placed in the product and others that should be avoided, you will move to the stage of converting those ideas into a design. Product design takes many aspects and forms, including:

Paper format: In this method, the details of the product are carefully planned on paper, and a lot of drawings may be required. Car manufacturers used this method, as designers would draw the shapes of cars and the details of their various components on paper before presenting it to the production team, of course, before the advent of computers and digital design software.

Mockup: With this method, you can create a product design by building a hologram similar to the final product. For example, construction engineers sometimes resort to transforming the design of facilities into models by building them with wood sticks so that they simulate the final shape of the project.

Digital form: It is the common form nowadays, and it includes the creation of two-dimensional designs, through special product design programs, such as Photoshop or AutoCAD, among others.

Or create 3D designs, which is a great and advanced option and gives the designer great flexibility in modifying designs and simulating them for the final desired design, such as 3ds Max, Maya, and others. At this stage, you will have obtained the initial product design schematic. This schematic may be schematics on paper or a stereoscopic design, and it may be two-dimensional or even three-dimensional designs on the computer, whatever design method you used. The next step is to transform this design into a real prototype. .

5. Prototype making

In order to ensure the success of your project, you must inform project participants and clients of the design outcome and what the product will look like before starting its chain of production. This step is very important to ensure a successful project itinerary. At this stage, you must convert the designs into a tangible product, if it is a real tangible product, or interact with it if it is a digital program or service. Here are some golden points that you should consider in this step:

The model should be as accurate and flawless as possible, because it should represent the final form of the product, based on which customer and investor opinions will be based.

The prototype should not include all the specifications of the final product, but rather include the main features that will catch the customer's attention.

You have to assure customers that this product is a prototype, so it is scalable and may include some problems, which is the main purpose of its existence, to discover any defects or put forward any ideas for development, whether by the design team or the target customers.

6. Analysis of the results

At this stage, you will reap the fruits of the product design process, which is one of the most important stages. Do not hesitate to spend enough time, effort and money for it. At this stage, you should survey customers' opinions, either directly or through paper or digital surveys.

You should gather as much information as possible about customers' opinions, observations, suggestions and even criticisms of the initial product. This information will be a valuable treasure for developing a successful and competitive product. Any form of customer survey must include the following points:

Highlights of the product

Aspects in which the product is unique from other competing products

Negative points and drawbacks of the product

Product development suggestions

It is also helpful to include specific ratings out of 10 or out of 100 for each feature of the product, for example, what is the blending efficiency of an electric mixer out of 10.

The customer's overall opinion and satisfaction with the product, and you may also put a numerical rating on this point.

After surveying and analyzing customer reviews and their criticisms of the prototype, you can move on to the production stage, and the only essential point that you have to pay close attention to here is that the final product is similar or better than the initial product that you offered to the customers in the survey stage.

Providing distinctive and successful products and gaining customers' trust is not an easy job, but it requires good planning, great effort and careful study. Mastering the product design process and the correct implementation of each of its stages is the first and most important step for the success of any project and its leadership in the labor market in light of the fierce competition.

If you do not want or do not have enough experience in the field of product design, you can use external expertise to develop a successful design for your own project. You can use the expertise of professional specialists on the Khamsat platform, the largest Arab market for buying and selling microservices. Where you can search for product design services provided by professional independents, see the opinions of customers who purchased the service and fulfill their desires and aspirations, and choose the right service for you.