In this assignment we will be talking about the “Product Design Cycle” and the stages the product goes through before it is actually released to the consumers. We will also discuss each step in detail.
I liked the definition of the word “Product Design” on Wikipedia and it was “Product design is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad concept, it is essentially the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products”. It is basically the activities required to bring a new product to the market. Under the Product Design Cycle there are seven steps and they are: brief, research, specification, plan, design, test and evaluate. It is called the “Product Design Cycle” because every step that is done you go back to the previous step whether to check the research or the plan and it just keeps going in a circle hence the name “cycle”.
Brief-> is basically finding out what is the problem in the market and trying to come up with solutions for it. It is also compressing ideas of the actual new design and which also states the goal(s) of the design/product. It is basically the brainstormed ideas of the inventor on designing what product should be made that would satisfy the consumers or be useful to them. For example, consumers are not satisfied with the winter boots in stores because they do not warm the feet so it would be good for a designer to come up with a way to fill the needs of the market/consumers.
Research-> is the next step done after the basic ideas of the new design. Basically trying to find if there are related products in the market like your design, which assures that you are not copying someone else’s idea. Also if there are products that are similar it helps you to analyze the product and see if there are any problems with it and try to work on improving it. For example, realizing that there are similar boots of what you want to produce, they do their job quiet well which is to keep the feet warm during the cold weather but they do not look nice which is not making the women happy so the designer has to think about what style/design would make the women happy.
Specification-> is finding out the particular requirements of the design after you are done with the research. This helps to be able to transform the product into reality.
Plan-> is making a brief outline of how the product should/would be.
Design-> is when the business has the outline and a brief idea of how the product should be and then start making it.
Test-> after the product has been designed it has to be checked to make sure it is actually doing what is meant to do, for example checking if the can opener that has just been made can actually open the cans. Also to check if the product could be improved or if by any chance could harm the user e.g. it has a sharp end that could cut whoever is using it.
Evaluate-> is basically when the product is judged whether it will meet the consumers’ wants or not, also if it is worth the amount that is set for it. Also after all this hard work did the designers actually create what they wanted to or not.
To conclude, after I did this project and researched all the data that I needed I have realized that it is not as simple to make a product even though it seems that it is, also the fact that the product goes through so many stages till it is actually how we get it in the shops.
purpleunicornn 