Product Development Cycle: Where Do I Start?

Here we are at the beginning of the product development life cycle. If you’ve got a bright idea, you’re on the right page. You’re creating a product that solves problems and makes life easier. You want to reach a variety of people or inspire young minds. You’re determined to impress your colleagues and increase your company’s net income.

But what comes next? The beginning phases of product development take experience, patience, and creativity. Through careful research and analysis of your user needs, product usability, and market demand, it won’t be long before you’re confident in your brainchild – and in our ability to help it work effectively and succeed in the market.

The Cycle

Build. Test. Learn. Repeat. These steps are the building blocks to great product development and design. And when you evaluate your concept, whether you’re starting with nothing more than a napkin sketch or you have some details fleshed out, iteration (creation, testing, learning/improving, and retesting) is fundamental. The good news is that you can enter the “Build-Test-Learn” loop at any point. Though, we recommend exiting the loop after analyzing your test results during the “Learn” stage.

Think of it this way: You can’t test the limitations and benefits of a future product without building a prototype. You can’t build a prototype without learning what your target buyer needs or wants your product to do or what problem they want it to solve. And lastly, you can’t continue to learn the necessary adjustments if you only build and test your prototype once. Some products only take a few iterations. Some take hundreds – or even thousands of attempts to be successful.

For instance, the Dyson vacuum aimed to more efficiently suck up dirt and not spread it around the room like the vacuums on the market at the time. James Dyson noticed the cyclonic separators used in industrial sawmills, and that inspired him to create this unique design. Even though his quick prototype worked, it still took 15 years and 5,127retests and prototype designs before his product was ready for market. And he wasn’t the only one either. The inventors of the light bulb, the Ziploc bag, the barcode, HDTV’s, and many more harnessed patience and relentless repetition to reach their potential.  Setbacks are part of your eventual success. Luckily, you’ll save yourself time and money in the long run if you let this cycle guide you to greatness.

The Learn Stage: User Needs & Buyer Persona

Creating a product that your target audience wants to buy and can effectively use doesn’t happen by chance. You need to know your ideal buyer – like really know them. Study their needs, pain points, passions, and behaviors. Processes like journey mapping, buyer personas, and voice of customer activities, just to name a few, can prepare you to ask the right questions and find the answers you need to make necessary changes.

• Journey Mapping: A technique used to visualize and understand your prospective buyer’s experience with your product at different points and how it can solve their problem.
• Buyer Persona: A fictional, fleshed out representation of your ideal customer including their demographic information, personal background, demeanor, communication preferences, goals, and challenges.
• Voice of Customer: Capturing your audience’s aversions, preferences, expectations, and difficulties through research and observations.

Once you’ve mentally become best friends with your buyer – once you know them inside and out – then you can get to work making your product desirable to them.

The Build Stage: Prototyping

See it. Feel it. Know how it works. But most importantly, gather valuable feedback from it. Prototypes are early samples or mock-ups of your product. They can be made of virtually anything from paper and glue to foam and wood. Regardless of how minimal, you can use them to figure out what you don’t know about your design and influence your future improvements. How many improvements, you ask? It depends.

While there’s no way to determine how many loops or cycle iterations you’ll need to go through during product development, we’ve found that starting simple with prototypes provides an efficient and cost-effective way to learn as much as possible each time. From visual aspects to ergonomics and functionality, a variety of elements can be perfected through the “Build-Test-Learn” loop. So, start small, and you’ll have the resources needed to create helpful, user-tested prototype iterations that keep your wallet full and your schedule manageable.

The Test Stage: Usability Testing

Wouldn’t it be awful if you spent tons of time and money creating a product that didn’t appeal to your ideal buyers? This is avoidable. Usability testing teaches you about your customers’ needs and determines how you can produce tangible solutions.

During a testing session, users that represent your ideal buyer will perform typical tasks with your product. During this, you observe, listen, identify usability issues, and assess overall user satisfaction. Once you’ve completed this step, it’ll be easy to jump back into the build-test-learn cycle and continue making improvements. Just like many aspects of product development, usability testing is iterative. However, if you focus on a small group of known risks, keep volume of participants low (we recommend 5), and limit the types of testing needed, you can control your budget and gain invaluable knowledge about your future customers – and that’s priceless.

Market Demand: Do My Buyers Want This?

Your idea is unique, and you’ve put together some prototypes to see roughly how it will look and function. That’s great! Now here’s the big question: Will your ideal users want to – and can they afford to buy your product?

According to Cambridge Dictionary, market demand is the demand of all possible customers for a particular product or service over a particular period in a particular market. Sounds particular, right? This happens because your customers’ desire is based on a variety of factors. These include: willingness to purchase at your set price point, income, expectations in your product’s reliability and success, options for substitute products, cost of related goods, and competitor goods/accessories.

In theory, these variables are in flux simultaneously. That means they can increase or decrease market demand depending on what’s at play. Here’s an example. Imagine you’re creating a tool that helps you remove large loads of laundry all at once. If the quality of your product increases, your market demand may increase. However, if your competitor’s selection for accessories increases, that could cause a decrease in demand for your product. Without realistic expectations of your market demand, you may pour money into a project with no return on investment. Save yourself by studying market demand thoroughly — or come to us for help.

Conclusion: The Cycle is Essential

Every part of the “Build-Test-Learn loop is integral to inventive product development — and satisfied buyers. You just need the right research, calculations, testing, and adaptability. Stay patient and trust the loop. As a result, you’ll stay ahead of the curve — and keep your customers wanting more.

Let us show you the ropes! Contact us for a free consultation, and we’ll lead you to success.

info@flyingpigdesignsllc.com

720-470-9122

75 Waneka Parkway, Lafayette CO 80026