Our Industrial Design Specialists Top Design Considerations

What the MAKO Design + Invent Team Considers When Designing a Product

When you work with MAKO Design + Invent, you can rest assured that our qualified and world-class team is ready to bring your ideas to life! The team at MAKO all employ different ways when approaching product design to make the most innovative and freshest designs in the market.

No matter the project, we make sure that each outcome is of high quality and is suitable to our clients’ needs in the most cost-effective manner possible. We receive a lot of questions about how our team likes to work and approach design, which is why we dedicated this blog to explaining some of the factors our Austin-based industrial design specialists consider when approaching a project or throughout their design process journey!

Consideration #1: Having Detailed Design Constraints

Our Austin industrial design specialists believe that design constraints are an especially important factor to take in when beginning the design approach and process to your project. Detailed design constraints can help give the designer a clearer image of what factors they must continuously consider when creating the design of a project and what they should remember throughout the design process.

We always ask our clients to be as specific and detailed as possible when describing what they would like their product to have to make sure that what we deliver is above and beyond expectations. Describing detailed design constraints may include letting us know the details of the material that the product can be made from and other functional details such as what the product should do, cost limitations, and quality standards.

Another way that our Austin industrial design specialists approach design constraints is by following the ‘Total Design Model’ by Professor Stuart Pugh. This model lets each designer know all the factors that might influence the design of the product and what factors must be given attention throughout the whole design process.

Having all of these factors down helps designers know how to balance each one of them and which will influence a design the most. This approach ensures that factors such as cost, ergonomics, and environment of the product are not given dominance over another and that every factor is equal.

Texas industrial design specialist

This image best represents the total design approach. Each plate represents a different factor. You can imagine the design like a circus performer balancing each plate, ensuring that everything stays balanced. At certain times, some plates/factors will require more attention than others depending on the design stage, but overall, each plate is balanced and does not have more emphasis than another.

Consideration #2: The Above and Below-the-Line Criteria

Simply put, our Austin industrial design specialists explains the above and below-the-line criteria as detailed specifications of what each client expects from their design. The above line criteria explain the characteristics and details of the qualities, looks, images, and visual interface between the user and product, materials, ergonomics, and function.

Essentially, the above line is all about the physical and visual.

The below-the-line criteria focus on the performance, operation, manufacturing, material, components, assembly, and build quality of the product. Therefore, the below-the-line criteria are all about how the product is made and how it will work.

Texas industrial design specialist

Consideration #3: Qualitative and Quantitative Testing

During the design process, our Austin industrial design specialists share that it’s a smart practice to test your product out in a couple of different ways in order to make sure that your design is headed in the right direction. There are a couple of different ways that one can test their product but two important and well-used tests that the MAKO team likes to integrate into the design process are qualitative and quantitative testing.

The importance of qualitative and quantitative testing is due to the fact that designers must consider both tests when selecting materials and processes for the design and manufacturing of the product for its design specifications.

Quantitative testing looks at the objective, measurable criteria of the project. This helps assess against specific performances and measurable objectives such as the maximum and minimum desired weight of the product, the hardness, the ductility, and the malleability.

Qualitative testing reflects the intended quality of a defined aspect of the material specification. This form of testing is more subjective to the specific design details of the projects. Examples of qualitative testing look at how aesthetically pleasing the material of the product will be, whether it will be recyclable, a certain color, and other considerations for its debut within the market.

Texas industrial design specialist

Consideration #4: Specification Criteria

No matter how simple or difficult a project is at MAKO, our Austin industrial design specialists want to get as many details as possible about what our clients expect for their products. The specification criteria are important in order to document a list of goals that the final design must achieve.

The best way to approach developing your specification criteria is to create a checklist to which our designers can refer and review while they are working on the project.

Your specification criteria should help evaluate your ideas and the finished product. It should include a list of statements that reflect your findings from the research you conducted for your product and what your design should achieve.

It’s important to remember that while you create your specifications criteria you are not too specific about what you want your design to achieve in order to not restrict yourself from innovative ideas but to also not be simple when describing your ideas. Essentially, the point is to create a clear list of things that your product should be able to do.

Texas industrial design specialist

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today and visit our website to find out more. Or feel free to give us a call at 1-888-MAKO, and we can set you up on a call with our product analyst!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial designmechanical engineeringelectrical engineeringpatent referralprototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!

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