As usual, let’s first clear something up. This time, we’re not talking about which CAD software to use, hardware simulation on a computer, manufacturability analysis, and all those big words everybody says to sound smart. Instead, the discussion here leans toward the simpler stuff, the basic, the layperson’s ideas of good product development preparation. Let’s call them the “nontechnical” elements if you like, and by the end of the article, you’ll learn that they’re every bit as meaningful to determine success as their technical counterparts. In any case, Cad Crowd is always at your service, ready to connect you with the world’s most qualified NPD professionals through either a managed collaboration or a temporary hiring method.
🚀 Table of contents
Nontechnical elements
The business of NPD (New Product Development) has never been a simple exercise. Even when you’re restricting the discussion to the less technical stuff, there’s still quite a lot to cover. Things like establishing a strong retail presence, ensuring a good unboxing experience, and even creating “just the right” new product smell are all important to improve your chances of success.
Retail presence
Assuming your product is supposed to sit on a retail shelf among the myriad of competitors craving for buyers’ attention, packaging is the most important salesperson you have at your disposal. This is pretty much the case with small companies, which often have to work through brokers (for a fee) to get the products displayed by retailers like Walmart, Costco, Target, Dollar General, The Home Depot, etc. Such retailers don’t work for you, and their employees probably can’t explain what your product does and its best features to buyers. Packaging is truly about the only thing you can rely on.
Aesthetics are important, but they’re much more than just graphics and colors. What you need is a physical hierarchy where your product’s greatest highlights are visible from 10 feet away. Good packaging also indicates that you take proper care not only of the presentation but also of preservation. Have you ever seen loose keychains without any packaging in a hobby shop? A lot of them are cheaper than the blister-packed ones, and often dirtier too.
Most of the time, you really have to bump into them to actually notice that they’re there. People expect to get a clean, new product, so packaging design is really a no-brainer decision. In addition to keeping the product clean from random people’s smudgy fingers, packaging does improve retail presence to a reasonable degree.
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But it doesn’t mean you should go overboard either. At least in this case, a bigger box doesn’t always translate to greater visibility. Some major retailers have standard shelf height, so even if your product is barely half an inch taller than that, they’re more likely to shove it to the bottom shelf, where no one bothers to take a closer look. Also, think about stackability, because packaging with a weird shape can be difficult to handle. A unique shape does stand out from the crowd, but if it easily tips over, the bottom shelf is where it goes.
Yes, unboxing is a thing
In the old days, when people bought a new product, they quickly took it out of the box and couldn’t care less about the cardboard, the styrofoam, and the plastic wrapper. Unboxing wasn’t a thing back then, but unfortunately, it really is today. Judging by how popular this is on social media, it seems you have no choice but to cater to the notion that unboxing is a precious moment. Because of that, the idea of effective packaging goes beyond providing a protective cover that’s also quick and easy to disassemble.
Unboxing a product nowadays seen as something worth sharing in the virtual world full of fancy nicknames and avatars, like it’s something you can and should brag about on YouTube and Facebook. And this adds another headache for product development teams, as the packaging itself must be designed to deliver a rewarding unboxing experience. If your packaging is so secure that a buyer has to tear it apart to access the product inside, it’s bad practice. On the other hand, poorly made packaging that’s easy to open can put the product at unnecessary risk of damage.
There needs to be a good balance between secure packaging and an enjoyable unboxing experience. Using multiple layers might be an effective way to ensure that. The outer layer, presumably a cardboard box, should be easy to open. Cardboard or any other similar material resists fingerprints and smudges quite well, and they’re not that difficult to produce. Blister packs, typically used for an electronics and hardware products, look great but don’t actually conceal the products, so there’s not much of an unboxing experience. The inner layer, like a pouch or another transparent box, enhances the premium feel and makes unboxing more enjoyable. Some people may call it tedious, but many others see it as a big part of the overall product experience.
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Bottom line is, product packaging shouldn’t be an afterthought. It carries a heavy burden of convincing customers that the product inside is worth their money. You get only one quick chance to create a good first impression, so make sure that every second counts. If there’s something that can make or break product ideas even before launch, it’s the packaging design.
Hefty almost means quality
When it comes to physical products or objects of any sort, we suffer from a brain condition that associates an object’s weight with its perceived quality. Each time you pick up a knife, you want it to be hefty enough that you wouldn’t want to slice an apple with it; even a thin laptop or smartphone feels nicer if it’s properly weighty; the most trustworthy hammer in the toolbox is the heaviest one. We’re not saying that lightweight products are all bad, but you can’t help but subconsciously flag them as cheap or somewhat disposable. Meanwhile, a hefty product conveys the impression that it’s made of dense, high-grade materials and suggests durability.
This is not in any way a suggestion to make a product heavy just for the sake of it, but more of a notion about weight distribution. Unless you’re talking about shoes or eyeglasses, there’s no denying that a lightweight product seems fragile and brittle. It may even trigger a sense of unease because the product looks as if it will break after a single drop. You’re not comfortable using it, and there’s little confidence that the product can withstand even the slightest bump. And unsurprisingly enough, a product that’s too heavy is just as cumbersome. If you can’t easily handle a butcher knife, for example, every slice becomes a real struggle. What you want is the “Goldilocks” weight.
The sweet spot is where the product is neither too heavy nor too light. It still needs to be hefty, but not unwieldy. While this kind of “hand feel” does stem from the complexities of material choices and design ergonomics, you can’t really describe it as a technical issue. It’s more like a practical case of physical vibe that helps shape buyers’ quick perception of quality rather than the result of a thorough assessment. And if we really think about it, a quick perception is all it takes to separate a buying decision from rejection.
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Tactile experience
Still on the subject of material choice, the tactile experience of a product also speaks volumes about its quality. Apart from proportion and weight balance, the typical buyer can’t help but associate different types of materials with the product’s value for money. For instance, wood should feel warm to the touch, and its organic nature is indeed worth a certain premium. Metal is cold and hard, giving buyers the confidence that the product is built to last. Plastic is always seen as the lesser material, less durable, and less premium than the alternatives, but more affordable. Each of these materials has its own distinct feel to the touch, or tactile perception if you like.
Let’s say your product is a coffee machine that promises both reliability and ease of use. As strange as it may sound, people don’t initially judge a product based on what it does or even how well it does the job. The machine can probably make great-tasting coffee, but because users have to interact with it to make the beverage, tactile feedback will inevitably affect their judgment. Imagine having two machines in front of you. They offer the same set of features and are sold at the same price. One comes with all-metal dials and knobs, whereas the other has plastic buttons. Despite having identical functionality, you can easily guess which machine sells more.
With that in mind, tactile perception is a good indicator of value for money and, therefore, of the price point. The coffee machine example above says that metal is the material of choice, and this is probably right for most physical products. But it doesn’t mean that metal design product is always better than plastic design product. There are plenty of products that work best if they’re made of plastic, such as toys (like LEGO bricks), electronic enclosures, car bumpers, syringes, and more.
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Although tactile perception provides a lot of insight into the product’s expected quality, it still comes down to how the product is meant to be used. For instance, metal keycaps on a laptop probably look impressive, but they’ll burn your fingertips after a prolonged session of typing. If plastic makes more sense (cheaper to manufacture, easier to handle, and safer than alternatives), an effective way to deliver “good” tactile perception is to ensure that material choices and finishing align with the price range and promised quality. In addition to durability and aesthetics, you also have to consider whether the material can be safely or comfortably handled for its intended use.
Assembly required
If your product is one of those with a reasonably small badge exclaiming “assembly required!” near the bottom of the box, you’d better make sure that the instruction manual is as well-written and clearly-illustrated as they come. Before we delve into this, let us remind you that there are two types of people:
- The average buyer belongs to the first type. They look down on the badge and think that every product should come pre-assembled from the factory; otherwise, they’ll avoid buying it altogether. Their idea of hell is an IKEA store.
- In contrast, the second type consists of buyers who think they have better things to do than read a manual before assembling a product. In their mind, “assembly required” is a suggestion that if all else fails, read the instructions, then burn it.
- And if you really want to stretch it, you get a third type, with the conviction that instruction manuals with pictures are only for the unintelligent. We’re going to ignore these people because their opinions aren’t really that important.
Perhaps you’re selling model kits, specialized tools, bicycles, office chairs, telescopes, shelving units, or anything else that requires some assembly out of the box. We’ll be generous and assume your product is well-built and of good quality, whatever it is. So that’s one box ticked in the quality assurance sheet. The challenge is to convince people of your ability to write a good instruction manual.
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Buyers like illustrated instruction manuals. They just don’t like to admit it. Here is an idea: rather than saying “Assembly Required process” on the box, why not just be brutally honest and go with “Manual with Pictures Included?” It might not have the same rings (admittedly), but for sure it’ll get the job done. Remember to include the assembly tool as well. It doesn’t matter whether it’s just a pair of screwdrivers or a hex key; the important thing is that you provide the required tools for proper assembly, so the buyer never needs to purchase anything else to get the product ready.
Intuitive assembly can be a technical matter, but sometimes it’s just a matter of common sense with a little bit of aesthetic touch. An easy example would be the use of color-coded fasteners. Instead of using multiple small plastic bags to organize the screws by length, don’t you think the buyers would appreciate it more if you used color-coding? For instance, the short screws are black and are to be used on the inner side of the assembly, while the longer ones are red and are for the outer enclosure. It really isn’t that difficult to paint screws anyway. An effective manual is an unassuming one. A good rule of thumb is to write the manual as if you’re explaining it to a 5-year-old kid. Never assume that every buyer has the same technical understanding of a shop drawing as an engineer.
Mechanical feedback
A physical product should give a mechanical feedback service to the user. It can be the “click” of a button, the “thud” of a lid closing, or the slight yet noticeable resistance when you flick a switch. The knob on a quality safe makes a nice clicky sound with every turn, as does the plunger of a ballpoint. All these seemingly accidental noises are more than just mere side effects of hard objects bumping into each other. They’re engineered to provide reassuring feedback (which makes this a technical consideration? Maybe, but we’ll gloss over it for now).
Mushy buttons have very few physical cues. They seem not to want to tell you if you’ve already pressed them, and that’s not reassuring at all. There’s a reason why mechanical keyboards are so popular nowadays, to the point where silent mice appear like a step in the wrong direction. Clicky yet not noisy buttons are best. If you were born in recent history, you probably didn’t know there was a series of smartphones (with a physical keyboard, because that was a thing back then) that was popular until about a decade ago called “BlackBerry.”
Take our word for it, they used to have the best buttons in the world. If your products have buttons, that should be your point of reference, but we digress. In general, regardless of the product, so long as it has moving parts and requires users to occasionally operate them, make sure that every interaction feels easy and pleasant, and comes with a sprinkle of reassurance about quality. A movable part isn’t always in the form of buttons. It can be a snap-on battery cover, a screw-down lid, a filler cap, a door, a lever, a pull cord, etc.
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Everyone smells their new product
You don’t see it happen often on unboxing videos on YouTube, but we know that just about everybody almost always smells their newly purchased product. Not every new product smells like a perfume, alright, and many (probably most) people actually don’t expect a physical object to give off the hint of vanilla or earthy green, whatever that means. At the same time, they do not need to be exposed to the pungent odor of harsh glues and low-grade plastic with every unboxing.
Apart from being unnecessarily unpleasant, the sharp stench is almost a sign that you try too hard to make the product as clean as possible. But more often than not, this tells buyers about how low the quality must be that you need to use toxic bleach to clean things up. A brand-new product, fresh out of the box, should smell nice like a tree on a calm afternoon in autumn, not a sterile medical laboratory. Even if you have to use strong chemical cleaners, at least use vacuum packing process to suck all the air out before sealing it shut.
Is it easy to clean?
People expect their new product to look as great as the picture on the box. And thankfully, in a lot of cases, that’s not exactly a tall order. We’ll take the liberty of assuming you’re not selling collectibles, such as die-cast toys or trading cards, which should be kept in clear packaging to maintain their value. Instead, you build and sell a practical product meant to be used for its intended purpose. It’s an ordinary item people use daily. Things like stationery, kitchen utensils, power tools, home appliances, wallets, backpacks, everyday gadgets, and basically just some actually useful everyday items.
A product looks clean and shiny when it’s new. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s how it has always been. Over time, however, after a few days or weeks of use, the clean, shiny look may be covered with dust, gunk, and smudges. The truth is that physical products do get dirty. The question is, have you made it easy for a user to clean the product? And guess what, the hints to the right answer are surprisingly pretty straightforward.
Let’s start with the surface finishing. Polished metal shines and feels premium, but it’s a fingerprint magnet that turns into a smudge fest after just a few minutes of use. Brushed finishing might be better, and it can look just as pretty. Tiny crevices on a product’s surface also lend a sense of sophistication, creating a sense of intricacy in the design, even when they do nothing but collect dirt and sweat from the user’s hands. One of the most common examples of this problem is an ergonomic computer mouse with honeycomb holes. Are they easy to clean? Yes, they are. But are they easier to clean than holeless ones? No, they’re not.
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Modularity is important, too. Still remember how some products come with an “assembly required” badge? Now let this sink in for a minute: a product that’s easy to assemble isn’t always designed for easy disassembly and reassembly. Quite a mouthful of a sentence indeed, but not that difficult to understand. Say you’ve just bought a brand new desk ornament. It came in a box as an assortment of separate pieces that you have to put together using the included glue.
You had fun building the ornament, and the assembly itself was a breeze. But because the glue was so strong, you’re going to have a hard time disassembling the pieces for cleaning. Even if you manage to take it all apart, the adhesive leaves behind stubborn stains. So, for ease of cleaning and reassembly, mechanical fasteners like screws, bolts, and nuts are the better options. Cleanability is supposed to be one of the most important non-technical considerations for every new product idea.
Storage space
As far as new product development is concerned, everybody likes to talk about Design for Assembly and Manufacturing. What about “storage design?” Shouldn’t that be a consideration, too? Yes, it should, but unfortunately, it doesn’t make for a very interesting topic for discussion. That being said, we’re here to touch on the subject, albeit briefly, for the reason we just mentioned: it’s not exciting.
When people buy a product, they practically give up at least a small portion of their home’s real estate for storage. Bought a new juicer? Make sure there’s still some space in the kitchen cupboard because the shelf just isn’t deep enough. Taking home a new pair of lawn chairs for the porch? Make sure the old ones can go into the basement. Are you sure you want to get a treadmill? Like, the living room isn’t crowded already. You’re not living in the 1940s, where everyone treated radios as polished furniture. Everything in this day and age needs to be reasonably low-profile and easy to live with. If your product can’t be made into a small form factor, at least have the decency to give it a pleasing aesthetic. So that if it has to stand out in the kitchen, the bedroom, or perhaps the bathroom, it doesn’t become an eyesore.
Takeaway
Technical considerations are crucial, but don’t fall into the trap of taking all the nontechnical ones for granted. A small portion of your target consumers probably do care about every bit of sophistication that goes into the behind-the-scenes work of product development. They pay attention to the material specifications, safety certifications, the eco-friendliness of the manufacturing process, and ethical considerations as well (like whether animals were harmed in the making of the product, maybe?). The vast majority of buyers, however, focus on entirely different things, such as the new-product smell, the clicky feel of the buttons, and how well-made the pictures are in the instruction manuals.
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How Cad Crowd can help
Balancing priorities between the technical and nontechnical elements of product development can be a headache, but it doesn’t have to be a strenuous experience. All you need to do is hire the right people for the right tasks, and that’s where Cad Crowd comes in. Backed by a network of thousands of experienced product development professionals, Cad Crowd has what it takes to bring clients and experts together into a collaborative workflow through multiple hiring options and a user-friendly project management platform.
Cad Crowd gives you curated talent at your fingertips. With more than 15 years in the business, it knows a thing or two about not only bringing product ideas to life but also ensuring a successful launch. Contact us now for a free quote!
