The Product Designer and Design Thinking
The Product Designer and Design Thinking
Design thinking is fundamental with its philosophy for a process such as product design. It has a unified concept in the form of a method for solving problems and the resulting creation of products oriented towards people and their needs. This is a mandatory element for businesses that want to build the highest level of added value in their products, create product innovations and subsequently generate intellectual property. Applying design thinking to the product is a sign that the designer is aware of the essence of this process, because he is focused on its overall development, and not just on the design phase. Drawing on the necessary tools for the purpose – pragmatic thinking, point of view, knowledge and skills, through which to integrate the needs of people and the capabilities of technology into a complete solution. With a systematic and purposeful approach, product designers need to analyze, evaluate and conceptualize their ideas appropriately, transforming them step by step through designing and gradually moving to product development. The role of the product designer is to successfully combine science, art, technology, marketing and business to create products that people tend to use, and not just formally own as an object. He must study the past objectively, based on the path traveled and routine, synthesize it, channel it, and transfer it into the present purposefully; without unnecessary lurching into extremes and radicalization, especially when it comes to developing physical products. He must be able to extract certain principles, methods and techniques from the roots of historical accumulations, transform the perceived into essence and apply it through the transfer of knowledge from one sphere to another. He needs creativity, intuition, an innovative approach and combinatorial thinking, because the vision for building product developments does not arise on its own and from nothing. As a result of in-depth analysis and unification of knowledge, skills, consistency, focus, mental toughness and personal qualities, he must pave his way with the help of his own authentic methodology to reach the final product. Taking into account all aspects in the creation of a product, he must study the ways in which people use, exploit and abuse products. In addition to upgrading his qualities as a designer and developer, he should analyze consumer perceptions and marketing aspects in a specific way, being a form of market analyst, psychologist and communicator with customers. It is necessary to observe and emphasize certain aspects of the mental state of consumers, in which their desires, needs and the formation of their tastes and preferences are hidden, through which they wish to acquire and use a given product. This is an indispensable textbook for every product designer, but if he goes deep and enters the behavioral habits of people, and not superficially only passing through the outer layers of marketing strategies and commercialization of the product. The product designer, through his work methodology, approach, skills and knowledge, must form an interaction between market opportunities, customer needs and management levels in the companies developing products – senior management, strategic marketing and sales departments, and last but not least their communication with the owners of the companies and brands in question. He must be familiar with the way the product economy works, the industry, the different types of production and the executive levels in the person of profiled manufacturers, different types of specialists and craftsmen – subcontractors in the relevant fields. His understanding of the architecture and the arrangement of the stages covering the entire development of the product must be properly understood and interpreted, with the help of a process algorithm, leading to a real result – a final product. Often the process of designing and developing a product can be extremely daunting, costly and unprofitable if all aspects, possible scenarios are not analyzed and without sufficiently delving into the processes of product design and product development. Therefore, the stages of product design should be approached in moderation, with adequate expectations and a realistic goal, divided into separate small sub-goals. Many newly created products have the prerequisites to fail, and eventually be forgotten, and many will not even reach the market. Usually, in order to achieve an optimal version of the so-called “correct product design”, between 5 and 10 attempts are made, and methodologies with a sufficiently rich set of tools are often applied in the product process – “redesign” and “reengineering”. Practice shows that a product has the right to fail when presented on the market up to 3 times. Everything after that is understood as a total failure and the product is considered dead, since the market unbiasedly and objectively considers this a failure. It is inappropriate to cause unnecessary consequences that may have a direct impact on the company’s and brand’s reputation in the long term. There is nothing surprising in the fact that most new products do not reach the market en masse, are not implemented or fail, even if there is a great idea, team and financial security behind them. This is an integral part of the natural and logical laws of the market, applicable to businesses engaged in the development or production of products. In the “defective products” and the mistakes made in their designing and development, as well as in their overall planning, organization of the process or their presentation, there are always opportunities hidden, especially when this happens between competing companies and brands. Therefore, the product designer must always be alert, analyze the market and customer needs, look for opportunities, solutions to problems and offer an unusual point of view compared to “mass products”.
“Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking”. – Chris Pullman
