1. Market Research

2. Why do market Research? Identify your competitors.
Understand what product users want and will pay for.
Identify features that will increase value of product to customers and increase market for product.
Estimate size of market for your product.
Set cost goals for your product.
Avoid costly white elephants.

3. Market analysis: primary vs. secondary data sources
Primary market data: data that you create by interviewing potential customers or through focus groups, surveys, product tests, etc.
Secondary market data: data from various published sources, public and proprietary.
Much can be learned from analysis of secondary data, but collection of primary data is likely to be required for most products. The more innovative the product, the more necessary it is to collect primary data.

4. Steps in projecting market penetration
Identify competitors and competing products.
Identify customers.
Estimate potential market ignoring economics or technical constraints (unconstrained market potential).
Identify technical constraints that prevent use of your product.
Estimate percentage of customers eliminated by technical constraints. (technical market potential)

5. Sources of data about competitors and markets
Identify competitors and understand the markets.
Cost of competing products (initial, operating, etc.).
Characteristics of competing products.
Who are the competitors?
Who are the customers?
Data sources
Published books, reports, trade journals, etc.
Internet
For information about businesses, type name of institution + .com or .org
For information about universities, .edu
For information about governments, .gov

6. Sources of data about competitors and markets--cont.
Industry research
Search engine
Investor publications
Trade publications and web sites
Company web sites
Public data
Malaysia Census Bureau

7. Estimate technical potential
Does your product depend on specific resources or environmental or business conditions? For example, you are developing software that requires MS Windows. The Mac or linux users cannot use your product.
How much of the market cannot use the product because it doesn't meet these constraints?

8. Estimate economic market potential
Identify the fraction of customers for whom the economics of your product is better than competing products.
Identify important features of your product and competing products that may influence product choice and override economics.
Estimate what these features are worth to customers in equivalent dollar terms if possible.
Estimate percentage of technical market potential for whom overall value is greatest for your product (“economic market potential”).

9. What made one succeed and one fail?
Successes & Failures
What made one succeed and one fail?

10. How can this happen? Because people: Do not want to use them (desire)
Do not use them (purpose)
Do not enjoy using them (satisfaction)

11. Meeting a Customer Need
Every product has a
Use (purpose)
Level of usability
Meaning (symbolism)
All must be considered during the R&D phase to create a successful product
Innovating around these areas will have benefits

12. Where and How Do You Gather Customer Needs?
Just ask people

13. Gathering Customer Needs
From the Customer
From the Design Team
Through Research
Interview
Focus groups
Surveys
Observation
Concept maps
Library/Online
Existing Products
Experts
Prior Experience

14. Three Rules of Gathering Needs
Focus on the needs (the whats), not on solutions (the hows)
Be as specific as possible in identifying needs
Elicit needs the customer isn’t even aware of

15. From Customers The Steps to Take Interviews Focus groups Survey
Research
Design Team
From Customers
The Steps to Take
Develop questions
Conduct the interview/focus group/survey
Compile/assess the results
Interviews
Sit down and interview stakeholders
Focus groups
Sit down with a group of stakeholders
Survey
Filled out by stakeholders w/o interaction w/ design team.
Only know about needs you ask about
Direct interaction
Follow-up questions
Like interview + people not sharing all needs
Like interview + building off of each others’ ideas
No direct interaction
No follow-up questions
Low response rates
Lots of responses
Less time intensive/response

16. What Kinds of Questions?
Questions about WHAT the problem is. NOT questions about HOW to solve a the problem.
how big can the spring be?
Find latent, implicit, or hidden needs of customer
Don’t lead the customer to a solution or let the customer lead you to one.
“how long should it take to install the device?”
“what safety concerns do you have?”
“when you attach this in the bed or the hitch, make sure that the truck is not damaged”

17. More on Types of Questions
Express the need in terms of what the product has to do, not in how to do it
Use “extend to 5 feet”
Not “open scissors joint 5 feet”
Use “open at rate of 30 degrees per second”
Not “motor rotates at 30 degrees per second”
Follow-up Questions for clarification:
Express the need as specific, quantitative requirement
Customer says “Minimal maintenance”
You restate as “At least a 5 year service interval”
Customer says “Easy to learn”
You restate as “Learn in less than 1 hour”

18. From Research Libraries
Customer
Research
Design Team
From Research
Libraries
Standards, basic research on technologies, demographics, …
Existing Products
Examine the competition
If every toaster oven goes to 500F, yours better not only go to 300 F

19. Benchmarking Etc. Size of oven chamber Temperature range # of colors
Size of glass door
cont 4
# of toaster settings F E D C B A
Product
Toaster Ovens

20. Features and Capabilities
Benchmarking for Mtn Bike Forks
Other Products
Features and Capabilities

21. From Research Experts Listen to them!
Customer
Research
Design Team
From Research
Experts
Listen to them!
Examples: new technical area, feasibility of project

22. From Team Prior Experience
Customer
Research
Design Team
From Team
Prior Experience
Stay focused on the customer’s needs, not yours
Don’t lead the customer to a solution
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes

23. Your Strategy What you need to do
Develop a plan before just jumping into project
Where will you identify needs from
How will you learn enough to understand the needs and be able to turn them into requirements.

24. Clarifying the Task
Clarifying the Task – seems to be mainly about limiting the scope of a design project, but in fact a major role of task clarification is defining the initial design freedom… thereby opening the door the new possibilities.
What do I mean by DESIGN FREEDOM?
While a team must agree on a set of requirements in clarifying the task, DESIGN FREEDOM should be maintained as much as possible.
HOW IS DESIGN FREEDOM LOST?
HOW MAINTAINED?
Clarification of task prevents skipping straight to one design solution, a situation in which most design freedom is lost immediately)
CHAIR
assume that your device must “look like a chair”?
no fully aware of all materials available to you?
what exactly am I looking for?