This blog provides a forum for students, instructors and others to share information and ideas about the Spring Thesis Program at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.
Sorry it has taken so long for me to respond to this post about your product design and the user testing you are doing. While I have some questions, I am very impressed with your progress, and I think you should be able to make an excellent product if you continue to work very hard until the end of the semester. Testing is the key to making successful products, and your DIY cosmetics kit is one that could really benefit from this kind of testing, so you must gather lots of data by showing the product at each stage to as many different kinds of people as possible. Then, you must analyze the data you collect, and use this analysis to find out how to improve the product. The more cycles of testing, analysis and re-design you do, the better your projects will be in the end.
I really like your idea of the recipe cards, and the way you have designed them to make it really easy and fun for the consumer to try out these formulas. The use of icons to substitute for words makes sense. I am still unclear, however, about which ingredients, tools and containers are part of your product, and which ones you expect your user to purchase or acquire in some other way. For example, in your soap recipe, is the soap mold something that comes with the DIY kit, or does the user have to find that himself? Since the shape of the soap is very important to how it is used, it seems important that you will supply them. And, if you do, perhaps you should offer a variety of different shapes, to make the process of making the soap more creative and interesting for the consumer. Soap can take any shape, but I guess that a rounded shape will feel nicer on your skin than a box shape. If you make various shapes, you will be able to do an experiment where you ask people to try washing with each shape, and then ask them their opinion about each shape. Some will be more comfortable to use then others, and people might also have an aesthetic preference about the shape. Since they are making the soap themselves, I think they would like to make decisions not only about shape, but also about fragrance, texture, and cleaning properties.
Next, I am curious about the packaging for the DIY kit. You will have many little bottles and containers, and tools for combining and mixing. You also need a place to store the recipe cards so that they don't get lost or dirty. If you are going to be providing all of the ingredients and accessories needed to make all of these cosmetics, it might end up being quite large. Do you imagine that the kit will be easy to carry around? Are there hinges or other hardware to permit the user to open and close the case? What about materials? Will the kit be in some kind of transparent box so that the user can see everything without opening it?
YooRi, this could be a great project, but you are going to have to do a lot of prototyping and testing, and you need to keep a very open mind so that you can continue to improve the product based on real data that you collect through a rigorous series of user tests. Let me know how I can help as you move forward with this exciting project. steven
1 comment:
Hi Yoori,
Sorry it has taken so long for me to respond to this post about your product design and the user testing you are doing. While I have some questions, I am very impressed with your progress, and I think you should be able to make an excellent product if you continue to work very hard until the end of the semester. Testing is the key to making successful products, and your DIY cosmetics kit is one that could really benefit from this kind of testing, so you must gather lots of data by showing the product at each stage to as many different kinds of people as possible. Then, you must analyze the data you collect, and use this analysis to find out how to improve the product. The more cycles of testing, analysis and re-design you do, the better your projects will be in the end.
I really like your idea of the recipe cards, and the way you have designed them to make it really easy and fun for the consumer to try out these formulas. The use of icons to substitute for words makes sense. I am still unclear, however, about which ingredients, tools and containers are part of your product, and which ones you expect your user to purchase or acquire in some other way. For example, in your soap recipe, is the soap mold something that comes with the DIY kit, or does the user have to find that himself? Since the shape of the soap is very important to how it is used, it seems important that you will supply them. And, if you do, perhaps you should offer a variety of different shapes, to make the process of making the soap more creative and interesting for the consumer. Soap can take any shape, but I guess that a rounded shape will feel nicer on your skin than a box shape. If you make various shapes, you will be able to do an experiment where you ask people to try washing with each shape, and then ask them their opinion about each shape. Some will be more comfortable to use then others, and people might also have an aesthetic preference about the shape. Since they are making the soap themselves, I think they would like to make decisions not only about shape, but also about fragrance, texture, and cleaning properties.
Next, I am curious about the packaging for the DIY kit. You will have many little bottles and containers, and tools for combining and mixing. You also need a place to store the recipe cards so that they don't get lost or dirty. If you are going to be providing all of the ingredients and accessories needed to make all of these cosmetics, it might end up being quite large. Do you imagine that the kit will be easy to carry around? Are there hinges or other hardware to permit the user to open and close the case? What about materials? Will the kit be in some kind of transparent box so that the user can see everything without opening it?
YooRi, this could be a great project, but you are going to have to do a lot of prototyping and testing, and you need to keep a very open mind so that you can continue to improve the product based on real data that you collect through a rigorous series of user tests. Let me know how I can help as you move forward with this exciting project.
steven
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