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Chapter 8 Prototyping and Usage Testing

“Testing your prototype allows you to iterate on design

before launch, and helps you to deliver a successful
product.” - Michael E. Porter
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Learning Objectives:

After completing this chapter, the students should be able to:

1. Acquire the knowledge on alternative approaches to product development.

2. Learn and apply the knowledge on rapid prototyping in the proposed business
as reflected in the revised business plan.

3. Learn the method of Agile development and practice the stages of agile
development in the preparation towards business plan implementation.

Alternative Approaches to Product Development

Product development refers to the complete process of taking a product to

market. It also covers renewing an existing product and introducing an old product
to a new market. This includes identifying market needs, conceptualizing the
product, building the product roadmap, launching the product, and collecting
feedback.
New product development (NPD) is a core part of product design. The process
doesn’t end until the product life cycle is over. You can continue to collect user
feedback and iterate on new versions by enhancing or adding new features.

New product development (NPD) is the process of bringing an original product

idea to market. Although it differs by industry, it can essentially be broken down into
seven stages: ideation, research, planning, prototyping, sourcing, costing, and
commercialization.

Use the following development framework to bring your own product idea to
market.

1. Idea generation. Many aspiring entrepreneurs get stuck on the first stage:
ideation and brainstorming. This often is because they’re waiting for a
stroke of genius to reveal the perfect product they should sell. While
building something fundamentally “new” can be creatively fulfilling, many of
the best ideas are the result of iterating upon an existing product.

The SCAMPER model is a useful tool for quickly coming up with product ideas
by asking questions about existing products. Each letter stands for a prompt:

 Substitute (e.g., faux fur for fur)

 Combine (e.g., a phone case and a battery pack)
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 Adapt (e.g., a nursing bra with front clasps)

 Modify (e.g., an electric toothbrush with a sleeker design)
 Put to another use (e.g., memory-foam dog beds)
 Eliminate (e.g., get rid of the middleman to sell sunglasses and pass
the savings on to consumers)
 Reverse/Rearrange (e.g., a duffle bag that doesn’t wrinkle your suits)

By considering these prompts, you can come up with novel ways to transform
existing ideas or even adapt them for a new target audience or problem.

2. Research. With your product idea in mind, you may feel inclined to leapfrog
ahead to production, but that can become a misstep if you fail to validate
your idea first.

Product validation ensures you’re creating a product people will pay for and
that you won’t waste time, money, and effort on an idea that won't sell.
There are several ways you can validate your product ideas, including:

 Talking about your idea with family and friends

 Sending out an online survey to get feedback
 Starting a crowdfunding campaign
 Asking for feedback on forums like Reddit
 Researching market demand using Google Trends
 Launching a Coming Soon page to gauge interest via email opt-ins or
pre-orders

However you decide to go about validating your idea, it is important to get

feedback from a substantial and unbiased audience as to whether they
would buy your product. Be wary of overvaluing feedback from people who
“definitely would buy” if you were to create your theoretical product—until
money changes hands, you can’t count someone as a customer.

You may want to run a feasibility study or an assessment of whether your

proposed idea is worth investing in—or not.

Validation research will also inevitably involve competitive analysis. If your

idea or niche has the potential to take up market share, there are likely
competitors already operating in that space.

Visiting your competitors’ website and signing up for their email list will
allow you to understand how they attract customers and make sales.
Asking your own potential customers what they like or dislike about your
competitors will also be important in defining your own competitive
advantage.

The information compiled from doing product validation and market

research will allow you to gauge the demand for your product and also the
level of competition that exists before you start planning.
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3. Planning. Since product development can quickly become complicated,

it’s important to take the time to plan before you begin to build your
prototype.

When you eventually approach manufacturers or start looking for

materials, if you don’t have a concrete idea of your product’s design and
how it will function, it’s easy to get lost in the subsequent steps.

The best place to begin planning is with a hand-drawn sketch of what your
product will look like. The sketch should be as detailed as possible, with
labels explaining the various features and functions.

You don’t need a professional quality drawing since you won’t be

submitting it to a manufacturer at this stage. However, if you are not
confident that you can produce a legible diagram that will make sense of
your product, it is easy to find illustrators for hire on Dribbble, UpWork, or
Minty.

Try to use your diagram to create a list of the different components or

materials you will need in order to bring the product to life. The list does
not need to be inclusive of all potential components, but it should allow you
to begin planning what you will need in order to create the product.

For example, a drawing of a purse design could be accompanied by this

list:

 Zippers (large and small)

 Silver clasps
 Leather straps
 Protection pouch
 Embossed label
 Interior wallet

Along with the components, you should also begin to consider the retail
price or category your product will fall into. Will the product be an everyday
item or for special occasions? Will it use premium materials or be
environmentally friendly? These are all questions to consider in the
planning phase since they will help guide you through not only your product
development process but also your brand positioning and marketing
strategy.

The packaging, labels, and overall quality of your materials should be

considered as well before you continue to the sourcing and costing stages.
These will have an effect on how you market your product to your target
customer, so it’s important to take these aspects of your product into
consideration during the planning phase too.

4. Prototyping. The goal of the prototyping phase during product

development is to create a finished product to use as a sample for mass
production.
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It’s unlikely you will get to your finished product in a single attempt—
prototyping usually involves experimenting with several versions of your
product, slowly eliminating options and making improvements until you feel
satisfied with a final sample.

Prototyping also differs significantly depending on the type of product you

are developing. The least expensive and simplest cases are products you
can prototype yourself, such as food recipes and some cosmetic products.
This do-it-yourself prototyping can also extend to fashion, pottery, design,
and other verticals, if you are lucky enough to be trained in these
disciplines.

However, more often than not, entrepreneurs will work with a third party to
prototype their product. In the fashion and apparel industry, this usually
involves working with a local seamstress (for clothing and accessories),
cobbler (for shoes), or pattern maker (for clothing). These services usually
can be found online by Googling local services in the industry.

Most large cities also have art, design, or fashion schools where students
are trained in these techniques. Administrators from these university or
college programs can usually grant you access to their internal job board,
where you can create a request for prototyping help.

For objects like toys, household accessories, electronics, and many other
hard-exterior objects, you may require a 3D rendering in order to make a
prototype. Artists or engineers who are trained in computer-aided design
and drafting (CAD) software can be contracted to do this using UpWork or
Freelancer. There are also user-friendly online tools such as SketchUp,
Tinkercad, and Vectary for founders who want to learn how to create 3D
models for themselves.

To get a 3D design turned into a physical model, makers used to have to

get molds made for each part. Molds are typically expensive and involve
setup fees for things like tools and dies that are used to cut and shape
pieces of plastic and other hard materials.

Luckily, with the innovation of 3D printing, designs can be turned into

physical samples at a much lower cost with a quicker turnaround time.

5. Sourcing. Once you have a product prototype you’re satisfied with, it's time
to start gathering the materials and securing the partners needed for
production. This is also referred to as building your supply chain: the
vendors, activities, and resources needed to create a product and get it into
a customer’s hands.

While this phase will mainly involve finding manufacturers or suppliers, you
may also factor storage, shipping, and warehousing into your choice.

In Shoe Dog, a memoir by Nike founder Phil Knight, the importance of

diversifying your supply chain is a theme emphasized throughout the story.
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Finding multiple suppliers for the different materials you will need, as well
as different potential manufacturers, will allow you to compare costs. It also
has an added benefit of creating a backup option if one of your suppliers or
manufacturers doesn’t work out. Sourcing several options is an important
part of safeguarding your business for the long term.

When looking for suppliers, there are plenty of resources both online and
in person. While it may seem old fashioned, many business owners choose
to attend trade shows dedicated to sourcing. Trade shows like Magic in Las
Vegas provide the opportunity to meet hundreds of vendors at once—to
see, touch, and discuss materials and build a personal relationship with
suppliers, which can be valuable when it comes time to negotiate prices.

During the sourcing phase, you will inevitably come across the decision of
whether to produce your product locally or overseas. It is a good idea to
compare the two options, as they each have their own advantages and
disadvantages.

The most commonly used sourcing platform for overseas production is

Alibaba. Alibaba is a marketplace for Chinese suppliers and factories,
where you can browse listings for finished goods or raw materials. A
popular way of using Alibaba to find a manufacturer is to look for listings
with similar products to your own and then contact the factory to see if they
can produce your specific design.

6. Costing. After research, planning, prototyping, and sourcing is done, you

should have a clearer picture of what it will cost to produce your product.
Costing is a business analysis process where you take all information
gathered thus far and add up what your cost of goods sold (COGS) will be
so you can determine a retail price and gross margin.

Begin by creating a spreadsheet with each additional cost broken out as a

separate line item. This should include all of your raw materials, factory
setup costs, manufacturing costs, and shipping costs. It is important to
factor in shipping, import fees, and any duties you will need to pay in order
to get your final product into the customer’s hands, as these fees can have
a significant impact on your COGS, depending on where you are producing
the product.

If you were able to secure multiple quotes for different materials or

manufacturers during the sourcing phase, you can include different
columns for each line item that compare the cost. Another option is to
create a second version of the spreadsheet, so you can compare local
production versus overseas production.

Once you have your total COGS calculated, you can come up with a pricing
strategy for your product and subtract the COGS from that price to get your
potential gross margin, or profit, on each unit sold.
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7. Commercialization. At this point you’ve got a profitable and successful

product ready for the world. The last step in this methodology is to introduce
your product to the market! At this point, a product development team will
hand the reins over to marketing for a product launch.

If you don’t have the budget for expensive ads, don’t sweat it. You can still
run a successful go-to-market strategy by using the following tactics:

 Sending product launch emails to your subscriber list

 Working with influencers on an affiliate marketing campaign
 Getting your product featured in gift guides
 Enable Instagram Shopping
 Run Chat Marketing campaigns
 Get reviews from early customers

Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototype or rapid prototyping is a relatively new term and in its simplest
form, the process of creating prototypes quickly to visually and functionally evaluate
an engineering product design.

Careful consideration of the 5 key factors, viz. purpose, quality, quantity,

complexity and cost would have a major impact on the prototyping success.

In an engineering product design context, a prototype is a preliminary version

of the end-product and used to evaluate the design, test the technology or analyse
the working principle which in turn provides product specification for a real working
system.

Prototypes are an integral part of engineering product design and more

importantly in an overall new product development process. Rapid prototyping can
be used at any stage of the product development cycle or for any component or sub-
component and can be repeated numerous times along the new product design
process.

Although the term prototype is used in other contexts such as software

programming, semantics, and application development etc, the purpose is the
same.

Types of prototypes in product design. Prototypes can be categorised

depending on the degree of accuracy required i.e. “Fidelity” or where in the product
development stage it is used.

Fidelity types. Prototypes don’t necessarily need to look like final products
and can vary depending on what the product designer is trying to achieve from the
prototype. Rapid prototypes can be classified in terms of accuracy or “Fidelity” and
the degree of prototype accuracy can vary from basic low-fidelity to high-fidelity in
its functionality, appearance, user interface and size.
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Low-fidelity prototype – Very simple and produced very quickly to test the
broader concept. e.g. Paper sketches to cardboard mock-ups.

High-fidelity prototype – These prototypes appear and function as similar

and closer to the final product.

NPD stage types. In modern-day engineering product design, prototyping

process of build, review and refine, fits into all four major stages of the design
process (product planning, conceptual design, embodiment design and detailed
design).

Rapid Prototyping Process

 Proof of concept prototypes

 Demonstration or presentation model prototypes
 Functional prototypes
 Aesthetic or industrial design prototypes
 Final factory sample
 Alpha & beta build prototypes

Why is rapid prototyping important? In this fast-moving modern-day

consumer market, companies need to develop and introduce new products faster to
remain competitive. Since faster product development and technology innovation
are key to a company’s success, rapid prototyping becomes the most important
element of new product development. The following objectives are achieved through
rapid prototyping.

 Faster new product development – Prototyping plays a vital role in the

process of creating successful products because it speeds up the new
product development process
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 Early stage design/concept validation of form, fit, and function of the

design

 Final stage product verification against the technical requirement and

business objectives

 It allows functionality testing to test the objectives of the concept and

to finalise the specification

 Prototype gives the end user, client, customer, user participants

hands-on user experience to get feedback

Types of rapid prototyping techniques. Choosing the right rapid prototyping

technology is critical to the success of a prototype. Each rapid prototyping technique
has its own compromise in terms of cost, speed, material compatibility of the feature,
fidelity level and development stage.

Rapid prototyping doesn’t need to be limited to one process, one can use more
than one manufacturing techniques to assemble a prototype.

Following are the types of rapid prototyping technology available for

engineering product designers:

a. Additive manufacturing
 Stereolithography (SLA)
 Selective laser sintering (SLS)
 Direct metal laser sintering(DMLS)
 Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)
 Binder jetting
 Poly jetting

b. Other techniques
 CNC Machining Prototyping
 Vacuum casting
 Investment casting

Advantages and Disadvantages of Rapid Prototyping. Like any

manufacturing process or design stage, prototyping and rapid prototyping have their
own pros and cons.

a. Advantages of rapid prototyping

 Reduced design & development time
 Reduced overall product development cost
 Elimination or reduction of risk
 Allows functionality testing
 Improved and increased user involvement
 Ability to evaluate human factors and ergonomics

b. Disadvantages of rapid prototyping

 Lack of accuracy
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 Added initial costs

 Some rapid prototyping processes are still expensive and not
economical
 Material properties like surface finish and strength cannot be matched
 Requires skilled labour
 The range of materials that can be used is limited
 Overlooking some key features because it cannot be prototyped
 End user confusion, customers mistaking it for the finished
project/developer misunderstanding of user objectives

Take a moment to complete the following activity.

Activity 8:

1. Conduct a rapid prototyping of the product or service you have proposed in

your business plan submitted in ECC13.

Activity 8: Self-Assessment Questions

1. When you conducted the rapid prototyping activity, what feedback did you
get from your target market?

2. What type of prototype did you used for your proposed product/service?

3. Did your concept of the product/service changed because of the exercise?

What are these changes?