With competition at its peak in the world of business, product design has risen to be one of the most substantial determinants of a quality product. Unfortunately, there are a number of companies that neglect its importance, resulting in the failure of their products. Your goods’ functionality alone won’t make them successful; you need to back them up with an exquisite design to really attract your viewer’s attention.
To give you a nudge in the right direction and avoid highlighting hundreds of things that make your product design unique, here are five of the main things to avoid.
#1) Choosing Just Any Design
Many designers just design for the sake designing, without any intent of coming up with a suitable design pattern. This is exactly where they go horribly wrong. There are many spectacular design patterns out there; however, not all of them are an ideal choice. What you should do is find a design that complements the product. While it may not be the best design out there, at least you can sleep easy knowing that it’s the perfect match for the product and your users’ needs.
#2) Choosing Design over Functionality
There is no limit to the amount of creativity you can incorporate in the product design phase. However, the rule of thumb is to ensure that it doesn’t affect your product’s functionality in the process, driving engineers and their staff back to the drawing board and costing the company thousands if not millions. Work with whatever you have and you can use the new ideas later to breathe new life in the product.
#3) Implementing Unreasonable Ideas
Every designer loves to create newfangled and fun designs. It’s pretty natural, isn’t it? We all want to have the best, but not everyone has the resource for it. Designers have to understand that the creation of spectacular designs involves an exceedingly high cost followed by superior expertise (something not found in every company). So stick to the basic requirements of the product and remember to prioritize suitability over extravagance.
#4) Tinkering with the Wrong Aspects
Product design is a segmented process; as you move from one segment to another, designers are likely to come across several problems. In order to resolves these issues, designers begin tinkering with different aspects, even the ones that are perfectly poised, causing the problem to grow. Instead of tinkering with the whole design pattern, they should get down to the initial design scope and from there examine the root problem.
#5) Designing Only for the Present
When creating a design for a new product, you should take into consideration the present time as well as the future. Many designers have a disposition of considering only the current condition when creating a new product design. As a result, their designs soon begin to look outdated. So if you want your design to remain “fresh” for years to come, get a bit more futuristic.
Creating a product design is not as difficult as you imagine it to be. You just need to be a bit more focused and judicious in your approach. Use the above points as well and you’ll be able to avoid future design blunders.
PolyMth - Product Leadership 