Market research is essential in industrial design. In fact, you know you are working with the best industrial design firms when they emphasize the value of market research for your project.
It is because industrial design focuses on building products intended for consumer use. Design teams develop products that will be sold to a particular target market. This means, they not only make a product because you hired them; they have to look at how your product will become sellable too.
A common pitfall of most business establishments that hire industrial design teams is that they don’t immediately see the marketability of their product concepts. Just because they have envisioned a product, they think it’s the next big thing that’s going to hit the market. It doesn’t work that way, though, unless they have prepared by doing market research.
Among the benefits of market research in industrial design are:
1. You learn real-life problems your target consumers face.
Solving actual, existing problems can be challenging. As much as you want to create a product that offers a “fix-all” solution, you can only come up with a way to resolve a specific part of the problem. This isn’t a bad thing, especially when this problem is real.
Finding out what your market’s real problems are is essential in product development. It’s mainly because you learn what kind of product to build and how it should function to serve the needs of your audience. You cannot just conceptualize a product that works in theory, but is useless in real life.
2. You find out what tickles your market.
Aside from solving real problems, you also have to understand what tickles your market’s fancy. What makes them buy a specific product over its competitors? Why do they choose Product A over Product B?
There are several instances when competing brands offer the same kind of product, but only one gets the customer approval. It may not be because it offers unique functions; perhaps it is its design that enamors its users.
You may want to study what makes Product A click over its competitors. You can then incorporate these lessons in your product vision for the design team to use. The best industrial design firms would even ask your inputs during market research, since it is your product that they will be working on.
3. Market research reveals opportunities that you can take advantage of.
As mentioned earlier, there’s no such thing as a “fix-all” product, or a one-stop shop to solve your market’s problems. Even Swiss knives can only do so much in improving a person’s survival skills.
What you must understand, however, is that no matter how populated your niche is with brands competing for the same market, there are still opportunities that you can take advantage of. You may want to look at growing subcultures, or new technologies that you can incorporate with your product that no other competitor has done yet. You may also want to go deeper on how people use already existing products to solve their issues, including their feedback and complaints.
These pieces of information are vital in developing your product. It will stand out among its competitors not because it is new or unique, but because it answers specific, existing problems that your market wants to be resolved.