The Product Design Process Explained: From Concept to Prototype
How does one go from a simple idea to something tangible and real? This is what product design is all about. It starts with a concept, one that isn’t always realistic, but which sets the tone for what the final product must achieve. Slowly it’s tested, tweaked, and re-designed as the product design team tries to blend functionality, aesthetics, and ease-of-use.
In short, the product design process is not easy, and very rarely straightforward. To provide clarity, we want to take you through our product design process as a manufacturing company with over 35 years of experience.
Top Product Designers in Kitchener
Why listen to us? Ball Service Group has been in the business since 1987, and our team is made up of some of Kitchener’s most capable product designers. We pride ourselves on our unbeatable quality and end-to-end services. We aren’t talking just product concept to prototype, we’re talking concept to prototype to a finished product delivered straight to your facility. With our highly-skilled team and state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, we’ve helped hundreds of our clients make their product concepts a reality.
If you want to know more about what to expect for your project, don’t hesitate to request a quote! We can give you a detailed cost breakdown and give you an inside look into our process.
How Product Design Works
Product design can be a long process, with various factors coming into play before getting to the final product. It starts with a research phase before designing the initial concept. Once this concept is completed, a prototype of it is made to test its functionality, aesthetic, and user-friendliness. Countless iterations of the product are made, with minor tweaks made to the design each time. Ultimately, the team will need to make a version which best achieves the goals set out at the start of the project.
Multiple teams, including design, engineering, and marketing teams collaborate on a product design to make something that meets the needs of all sides. That isn’t even accounting the time that goes into industrial design and user experience, which are equally as important.
Common Product Design Challenges
Understanding User Needs
Accurately identifying and understanding the needs, preferences, and pain points of the target audience can be challenging. User needs and preferences can evolve over time, making it difficult to create a product that remains relevant. It’s also not uncommon to have a competitor release the same or a similar product before you have the chance to, especially if the development and production process takes longer than expected.
Speed is key to staying ahead of the current market, but being too fast can lead to a rushed and unproductive research phase. It’s important to strike a balance.
Balancing Functionality and Aesthetics
Finding the right balance between a product’s functionality and its visual appeal is difficult. Highly functional designs will often compromise aesthetics, and vice versa. Users often prefer a design that is sleek, modern, and compact, but these elements often go against functionality. Engineers need to get creative when blending both aesthetics and functionality together.
Technical Feasibility
From costs to resource availability, limitations in materials, technologies, or manufacturing processes can impact the design of a product greatly. Product designers can only work with what is technically possible. Additionally, creating functional prototypes that accurately represent the final product is technically demanding, but an essential part of the process.
Collaboration and Communication
Collaborating effectively with engineers, marketers, and other stakeholders can be challenging if there is a lack of clear communication or differing priorities. When certain aspects of the product get lost in communication, the project can easily get derailed.
Moreover, conflicting ideas and visions within the design team can slow down the decision-making process.
The Product Design Process Explained: What to Expect
Step 1: Research and Ideation
The product design process starts with initial research and ideation. A product is typically designed to fulfill an unmet user need and address a common pain point found in existing products. In order to properly fulfill user needs, product design teams need to conduct comprehensive market and user research to understand what exactly the need is and how best it can be fulfilled.
Why the Research Phase of Product Design is Valuable
Let’s say a product design team wants to make a reusable food storage wrap, similar to cling wrap but designed for more than just single-use. They are conducting a user survey to find out the biggest problems people have with using food storage wraps currently. As expected, one of the primary issues noted in the survey is a lack of reusability and sustainability concerns. This is why the team set out to design this product in the first place.
But that’s not all the survey uncovers. Additional findings note that:
Users consistently struggle with the wrap sticking to itself.
Users are concerned about the chemicals that may end up in the food from using plastic wrap.
Users don’t like that most wraps are plastic and can’t be used in the microwave or oven.
While the team initially entered the project with one pain point in mind, the research phase helped them discover various other pain points that could be solved. This shows how important this phase is for creating something truly valuable which reflects user needs.
This information helps every part of the team. It helps the engineering team design practical features that address multiple pain points. It helps the design team explore aesthetics and usability that resonate with users. And it helps the marketing team determine what features resonate with users when developing key messaging.
Concept Development
The next part is developing the initial concept. BSG can help create an initial sketch based on your product ideas, which will be used to create low-fidelity prototypes (sketches and wireframes) to visualize the product. This early concept is then presented to stakeholders and potential users to gather feedback and refine the design.
Design Development
Once the initial concept has been finalized, the team will get to work on high-fidelity design that considers aesthetics, functionality, and usability. This includes finding the materials, which need to be carefully selected to meet the design requirements.
For example, you won’t want to choose a material like plastic for a product that will be in intense heat conditions (ex. in an oven). Each material has its own advantages and drawbacks that should be considered before moving forward in product development.
We can also help you with this step and give helpful material recommendations.
Testing and Iteration
During this phase, functional prototypes are tested in real-world scenarios. This helps the team discover any noticeable faults in design, and under what conditions the design will break. The team can test out the usability of the product with potential users, and observe how users interact with it, giving them more insights. During this phase, the design will be refined countless times based on team, user, and stakeholder feedback.
We can help manufacture the high-fidelity prototype and test it with our team.
Finalizing the Product Design
Once the final design has been chosen, it’s time to prepare for large-scale production. This is another area where BSG comes in, as we’re able to execute high-capacity productions with speed and precision. You send us the finalized specifications, which we use for CNC programming of our high-power machines.
Depending on the type of product, manufacturing could involve machines like laser cutters, plasma cutters, 3D printers, manual mills, and more. We work with your engineers to ensure the design translates well into a manufacturable product.