Design Thinking & Product

Opportunity Identification
MEEN 601: Advanced Product Design
Fall 2022

MEEN 601 – Advanced Product Design 1

 In Retrospect…
Product planning steps

MEEN 601 – Advanced Product Design 2

 A Process Model Emphasizing Front-End Activities

Phase 1: Opportunity & • Develop five significant product-opportunity gaps (POG)

• Formulate the POG’s as opportunity statements
Scenario Identification • Visualize a scenario associated with the POG’s
These would
fit in Phase 1:
Planning & Phase 2: Value Opportunity • Analyze the value of the opportunities created
• Apply value analysis on the selected opportunities from every team member
Clarification Analysis • Choose one opportunity out of the four team opportunities
in the P&B
model
Phase 3: Understanding the • Understand the Value Opportunity through in-depth research
• In-depth understanding of the user (intended market)
Opportunity • Guideline development for future opportunity conceptualization

• Turn Value opportunities into perceivably usable and desirable product concepts
Phase 4: Conceptual Design • Generate many concepts with the team keeping needs in mind
• Analyze and evaluate concepts in the team and choose one

Phase 5: Embodiment, • Elaborate the product concept into a full-fledged model of the product
Detail, Abstract Prototyping • Demonstrate the proof of the concept with a prototype

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 Input
Info Market Technologies Your Firm Externalities
• Customers • State of art • Capabilities • Regulation/Laws
• Market Size • Trends • Resources • Supply chain
• Competitors • Costs • Strategic initiatives • Economy
• … • … • Financials • …
• …

Planning and Clarification

Output • Solution neutral problem statement (SNPS) • Design Requirements

Info • Project Plan • Design objectives

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 Topics…
Module Objectives:
• To introduce the design thinking mindset
• To explain ways to identify product opportunities
• To illustrate the creation of a solution neutral problem statement

New Ideas: You should be able to:

• Design thinking • Define and use the core concepts
• Product opportunity gap (POG) • Identify product opportunities
• State a product opportunity in the form of a solution-neutral
problem statement

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 Design Thinking
Thinking tools for human centric design

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MEEN 601 – Advanced Product Design 7
 Innovation in Design

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 Innovation in Design
• Conceiving a fully developed market
(not just a discrete device—innovation
is more than invention alone)
• Innovation powered by:
• Thorough understanding
• Direct observation of peoples needs
• Team vs. “lone genius inventor”
• Trial and error (99% perspiration)
• Learning by iteration
BIRTH OF DESIGN THINKING
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 Design Thinking

• Involves
• Designer’s sensibilities
• Designer’s methods
• To
• Match people’s needs with technological feasibility
• Viable business strategy for customer value and opportunity

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 Design Thinking Approach
NOT a pre-defined series of orderly steps
A system of spaces

Circumstances
that motivate
search for soln. Ideation

Generating, developing,
Inspiration testing prospective ideas
Implementation

Charting of
a path to
MARKET https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking

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 Example: Aravind Eye Care

Inspiration Challenge Solution

• Eradicate Cataract related • Deliver Eye Care to • Outreach “System”
blindness in India. population in remote areas. • Reach out to the population
if they cannot reach you

32 million patients treated & 4 million surgeries performed

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 Design Thinking Perspective on Aravind Eye
Care Example
Breakthrough inspired by
• Deep understanding of consumer’s lives Challenge
• Principles of design to build value – Logistic: deliver eye care to
• Similar to Edison populations in remote areas

Solution
– The Eye Care “System”
– If the population can’t reach us, let us reach to them!

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 sit eat
Inspiration: McDonalds

pay
http://www. http://www.jufu365.com/

pay sit

eat
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 Inquiry vs. Observation: What’s Different?
Inquiry Observation
Well chosen observers have deep knowledge of corporate
People can't ask for what they don't know is
capabilities, including the extent of company's technical
technically possible.
response.
People are generally highly unreliable reporters of Observers rely on real actions rather than reported
their own behavior. behavior.
People are not asked to respond to verbal stimuli, they give
People tend to give answers they think are nonverbal cues of their feelings and responses through
expected or desired body language, in addition to spontaneous, unsolicited
comments.
Using the actual product or prototype, or engaging in the
People are less likely to recall their feelings about
actual activity fir which innovation is being designed,
intangible characteristics of products and services
stimulates comments about such intangibles as smells or
when they aren't in the process of using them
emotions associated with product's use.

Courtesy: HBR, Spark Innovation Through Emphatic Design, Dorothy Leonard and Jeffery F. Rayport, December 1997.

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 Inquiry vs. Observation: What’s Different?
Inquiry Observation
People's imaginations-and hence their desires-are
Trained, technically sophisticated observers can see
bounded by their experience, they accept inadequacies
solutions to unarticulated needs.
and deficiencies in their environment as normal.
Observation is open ended and varied, trained
Questions are often biased and reflect inquirers'
observers tend to cancel out one another's
unrecognized assumptions.
observational business.
Questioning interrupts the usual flow of people's Observation, while almost never totally obtrusive,
natural activity. interrupts normal activities less than questioning does.

Observers in the field often identify user innovations

Questioning stifles opportunities for users to suggest
that can be duplicated and improved for rest of the
innovations.
market.

Courtesy: HBR, Spark Innovation Through Emphatic Design, Dorothy Leonard and Jeffery F. Rayport, December 1997.

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 Aesthetics?
• Design horizons are
broadened
• Experience and Appeal of
product is equally
important
• Design thinking: a tool for
integrating experience
with value

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 A Design Thinker’s Personality profile

https://sidlaurea.com/2017/09/21/becoming-a-design-thinker/

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 Product Opportunity Gap
Searching for product ideas

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 Reading List – See Canvas

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 Opportunity
• Opportunity is like a seed that may become an innovation:
• A newly sensed need
• A newly discovered technology
• A rough match between a need and a possible solution

• At an early stage opportunity is like a hypothesis about how value can

be created

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 Example Opportunity
• Steadily increasing application of Product Idea:
household solar electric power generation Tesla Power Wall
• Energy storage one of the limiting factors
of such installations
• Tesla Motors is a world leader in compact
battery-based power storage

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 Innovation Tournaments
• Invest small amounts in large raw
opportunities to reveal uncertainties
• Filter number and increase investment
• Repeat until you find an exceptional
opportunity

Similar to an evolutionary strategy. There is a

technical term called “tournament selection” in
genetic algorithms. Similar idea but not the same.

https://www.operationsworklife.com/hq2-tournament/

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 The opportunity creation strategies
1. Increase the quality of your opportunities
• Create better ones so that more clear the hurdle

2. Increase the quantity of ideas

• Produce more to see more exceptional ones

3. Increase the variance in quality of ideas

• Wacky ideas and wild notions increases the chance of
exceptional opportunities (not immediately obvious)

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 The Oxo (GoodGrips) Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKvak0MrVhg
https://www.fastcompany.com/90239156/the-untold-story-of-the-vegetable-peeler-that-changed-the-world
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 SOCIAL
Needs of physically challenged
Increase in > 65
Increase in home cooking

GoodGrips
Product-
ECONOMIC Opportunity Gap TECHNOLOGY
Seniors with disposable Neoprene
Income Pushing molding
$ in house wares increased New standard for
Niche marketing Manufacturing tolerance

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 Needs
Searching for product ideas (Product Planning steps 2, 4)

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 Product Planning Step 2. Search for Product Ideas
>> Examine needs and trends
• Goals are to understand
1. Whether any needs or opportunities exist
2. What product attributes are valued by customers
Some ways to identify
• Also interested in trends in these things (e.g., do people seem to want more needs/opportunities:
of something in particular over time?) • Marketing survey
• As an engineer, it is common that someone does this for you. • Direct customer interviews & focus
But it still is wise to understand it. groups
• Feedback from your current
• You may have in-house marketing teams or can bring in consultants
customers
• Study user scenarios
• Government RFP
Needs • A gap that can be filled by an engineered product or system • Client request
• Difference between the world “as it is” and “as we would like it to be” • Technological trend analysis
• …
Opportunity • Can be needs that you are positioned to fulfill
• Can be improvements you can make over existing products and processes
(i.e., identifying where you have a competitive advantage)
• Often is something made possible by new technology

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 Product Planning Step 2. Search for Product Ideas
>> Examine needs and trends

Example Need: Example Need:

Provide shelter, water and power for refugees displaced due • Ample knowledge exists for how to design a space
to war, famine, etc. launch vehicle.
• Space launch traditionally is domain of national
governments, but they are bureaucratic (i.e.,
Product Idea:
inefficient), cost sensitive and risk averse.
“Structural fabric” concept for
• Private industry could enter space launch market.
portable, deployable shelters
• Solar power generation
• Heating/cooling
• Water collection Product: Falcon 9
launch vehicle by
SpaceX

Designer: Abeer Seikaly.

http://www.abeerseikaly.com/weavinghome.php

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 Product Planning Step 2. Search for Product Ideas
>> Examine needs and trends

Product-Market Matrix [Ansoff, 1957]

• Maybe you should not design a new product, but instead better
promote an existing one or promote it elsewhere.
• Put differently, “don’t design a new product” is a totally
reasonable outcome of Product Planning!

Existing
New Products
Products
Lifecycle Considerations: Existing Market Product
• “Downstream” issues such as sales, maintenance and
Markets Penetration Development
retirement/recycling
• Design decisions impact entire product lifecycle and can promote or Market
limit value of product to customer New Markets Diversification
Development
• Note: for some products, upgrading & redesign are important
lifecycle phases to consider

Product Concept Detail Production Sales & Maintenance Retirement

Planning Development Design & Testing Distribution & Support & Recycling

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 Product Planning Step 2. Search for Product Ideas
>> Align with firm’s strategic initiatives
Firm’s Strengths (descending order)
Indicates preferred area for product
idea search Electronic Mechanical Electro-optics Lithographic Bonding
measuring measuring printing
Adaptive Control
&
microprocessors
Thermal control
(descending order)
Customer Needs

Remote Control

Traffic count

Adapted
from Pahl & Measure wind
Beitz Figure direction and
5.5 velocity

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 Product Planning Step 2. Search for Product Ideas
>> Creative processes

What
A method for telling a conceptual story about a user’s User Scenarios Method
interaction with your product, focusing on the what, how, • Approach: Take the user’s point of view
and why.
• Goal: Identify opportunities for creating new
Why products that satisfy user needs
To communicate a design idea by telling a story about a
specific interaction that a system supports. Through
creating user scenarios, you’ll identify what the user’s
motivations are for using your product as well as their
expectations and goals.
User scenarios also help the team answer questions
about what the product should do as well as how it
should look and behave.
Note: directly asking user what they
https://methods.18f.gov/decide/user-scenarios/ need/want may be unproductive. Why?

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 How
1. Determine a persona or user group to focus on.

2. Begin to list out the user’s goals, motivations, and

the context/environment in which they interact
with your product.

3. Put the details you came up with in step 2 into a

story format that includes information about who
they are (persona or user group), why they are
using your site (motivations), where they are
(context), what they need to do (their goal), and
how they go about accomplishing their goal (tasks).
Keep in mind, the more realistic details you add,
the richer and more useful your story becomes for
helping in understanding your user’s behaviors.

4. Share the user scenarios you’ve written with the

larger team for feedback and refinement.
http://knegadesign.com/skething/sketching/

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 Needs
Planning & Clarification

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 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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 Product Planning Step 4. Define Product and Clarify
>> Formulation Solution Neutral Problem Statement
• Might generically call it a “needs statement” but I
prefer SNPS because it emphases the need for
solution neutrality
• Opportunity for educating designer (and customer
if they are involved in process)
• Focal point for coordination of design effort
• Usually an iterative process requiring information
gathering and statement refinement
• Should identify intended customer
• Should explain what needs to be done, but not
how to do it
MEEN 601 – Advanced Product Design
Example:
Is the following a good or bad SNPS?
Need: “A HMMWV-mounted pumping system that
sprays an anti-traction material as a continuous film to
a distance of 100 yards”
Customer(s): US Army, USMC
It is BAD. Already limited to concepts that are:
• HMMWV-mounted, have a pump, use a sprayer
• Spray-able material, continuous film, specific
distance
• Army & UMCS use only. Why not Navy or Air Force?
Civilian (e.g., law enforcement)?
36
 Cordless drill/driver
Needs Statement Examples
Guideline Customer Statement Need Statement (Good) Need Statement (Bad)

The need exists to charge Need exists to provide

An attribute “I’d like to charge my
screwdriver battery from a power inverter that
of the battery from my
an automobile cigarette connects cigarette
product cigarette lighter”
lighter. lighter to screwdriver

“I want to know how

Use proper Include an indicator for Include an indicator
much power is
engineering the energy level in the for how much power
remaining in my tool’s
terminology battery. is left in battery
batteries.”

Adapted from: Ulrich and Eppinger

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 Needs Statement Examples
Cordless drill/driver

Need Statement
Guideline Customer Statement Need Statement (Good)
(Bad)

Need exists to prevent The screwdriver

“Why don’t you put
WHAT not shorting the electric battery contacts are
shields on the battery
HOW screwdriver battery covered by a sliding
contacts?”
contacts plastic door.

The screwdriver operates

“I drop my screwdriver The screwdriver is
Specificity normally after repeated
all the time” rugged.
dropping

“It doesn’t matter if it’s

The screwdriver is
raining; I still need to The screwdriver operates
Positive tone not disabled by the
work outside on normally in the rain.
rain.
Saturdays.”

Adapted from: Ulrich and Eppinger

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 Product Planning Step 4. Define Product and Clarify
>> Formulation Solution Neutral Problem Statement

What just happened there?
• We abstracted away the “how” and focused on the
“what”.
• The “what” of a design is called it’s function.
• In general, a design provides many functions.
Function: What a design does with (ideally) no
implication about how it is achieved.
Bad Need: “A HMMWV-mounted pumping system that
sprays an anti-traction material as a continuous
film to a distance of 100 yards”
Customer(s): US Army, USMC
Good Need: “A deployable system for impeding access to
an area in a non-lethal manner”
Customer(s): military, law enforcement, private
security

Example:
Some functions of a wristwatch
Different designs
• Display Time • Clasp wrist providing same
• Display Date • Any recent additions? functions

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 Product Planning Step 4. Define Product and Clarify
>> Formulation Solution Neutral Problem Statement

Abstraction Example Yes, that’s exactly what I said. You’re as

annoying as my four-year old…

Walls, counters, … any structure in a Why a sledge

building hammer? So you want: a human-powered tool for
removing structures in a building?

Because I don’t want them there Just walls? Because job sites are hard to get in
anymore; I want to remove them
abstraction

abstraction
to. Can’t use heavy machinery.

No, we still have to pick it up and Why?

Because I want to demolish them Why?
carry it around.

To punch holes in walls Why? As heavy as

It doesn’t have to be a sledge hammer. possible?
It just has to be a big heavy tool to
I need a heavy sledge hammer Why? demolish structures.

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