It
sort of baffles 'us' slightly, well a lot actually, that more manufacturers
aren't, shall we say, a little more 'user centric' (to use some of the
relevant terminology), during the design and development process. After all
a product is really an experience to the user and only a 'product' to the
'someone' who makes it. We're not saying that all manufacturers have no UX
focus as such, we're just saying that sometimes when you 'have an
experience' with a product, you might wonder if the design of it could have
been a little 'easier to use', even though whatever it does, it does it
quite well.
We
often find that we need to consider the whole experience when working with
clients during the development lifecycle, considering various aspects as we
go, appraising the function of the interacting parts, as well as how they
feel to the user. We don't always get the opportunity to make this amount of
an input to the development as we are fundamentally focused on providing the
design engineering capability through our skills, utilising the 'CAD' to
move the design promptly along towards the start of production. When given
the opportunity, however, we can make a significant contribution to the
process, either before, during or after the development is under way.
How do we do this? One of the big advantages for us as we regularly use some of these products in the rest of the business, so we either pester the client to get one of the products to use that we are working on, if there's a prototype available. Alternatively, as is more likely the case, we get the previous version of the product, or in some cases something similar and put it to use in a real life situation, thus getting some direct feedback into the design and development process.....like I said, it's simple having a 'user experience'.
If you need a design partner to significantly contribute to your product development lifecycle, then why not give us a call? We can help you consider the ‘Why’, ‘What’ and ‘How’ of product use.
