Design thinking and industrial design research are vital for the success of any new product development. Product design companies focus on iterative thinking and adopt the user backwards approach to formulate strategies that result in business growth. To ensure that your product stays ahead of the competition, investing in design research aids in creating a satisfactory UI and UX design that is aesthetically pleasing and meets the customers’ needs.
Design research for business innovation refers to a compilation of knowledge assembled through a process of stakeholder interviews, domain research, user interviews, and more to guide the creation of a product. At Future Factory, industrial designers thrive when they understand what makes people tick. It gives them context, allowing them to shape their ideas while considering what people want, need, and desire, and therein, they focus all creative energy.
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Importance of Design Research
Having only creative ideas is not enough. It is important to employ the best resources at hand that provide the latest insights, product innovations, customer buying patterns, and competitors’ strategies. Here are a few ways in which design research boosts new product design –
- Learn about consumer behaviour – “Behavior” is everything when it comes to design; it serves as both the oracle and the source. When a designer considers behaviour, they go beyond what marketers refer to as “customer behaviour.” The behaviour of systems, whether technological, social, political, or economic, is their main concern. Through design research, designers receive two forms of insight. The first is a sense of action that results in customer empathy. The second is understanding the behaviour in a way that gives hints regarding the frequency and buying patterns.
- Understand and analyze the culture – Culture is a concept that is constantly changing. Designers must have a thorough understanding of market user research. It is much simpler to create a product that fits the demands of the user rather than the design team’s needs if the design team fully immerses itself in the user research and models that emerge from the design research. It provides details about the company’s goals and objectives and helps gain some deep insights and unexpected replies by interacting with the end users.
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- Set Focus – At Future Factory, the best industrial design agency in India, conducting research involves being comfortable with uncertainty in the early stages of a product design to attain clarity later on. It helps designers gain a deeper understanding of the customers for whom they are creating a product.
It provides solutions to some of the most important questions in product creation. Some of these questions include –
- What is the best service or product to develop?
- What ought it to have?
- What qualities should it have?
- Is it performing as it should?
- Set design context – Context encompasses a wide range of factors, including actual and virtual environments where behaviour takes place and is influenced by culture. It entails determining the points of contact between the customer and the product. Industrial designers can comprehend the true context of the design process by acting as participant-observer or by seeing films and images obtained from the field. Conducting domain research with a focus on the overall context of the product area is a necessary step in design thinking for business innovation. This information will make it easier to find other available products and services that address comparable issues or provide supplementary features.
To know more about how Future Factory integrates design research for its successful product design, click here.