The Importance Of Product Design For Brand Success: A Case Study Of Apple

Significance of Effective Product Design

The purpose of this synopsis is to provide a detailed analysis of my learning from the course. My masters project was done in regards to product design taking into consideration the Apple company. The various essential aspects concerning product design of the manufactured products of Apple were systematically analyzed through the assessment project I undertook. The development of the project have significantly incorporated the value of product design towards generating market effectiveness of a product and consolidation of brand image. The concepts of design expression for human experience, customer experience and evolution of design were essentially evaluated in accordance with their basic and wider significance.

The research question that is being considered is how product design can help towards optimizing the product offerings of a brand to effectively increase the revenue and profitability of brands like Apple?

The prospects of product design increases after the target market of a product has been identified. This is a relatively newer and more effective process of product design. The emphasis is on the optimization of customer experience (Cayol and Bonhoure 2004). I have been able to learn the significance of product design towards the overall presentation and sale of product eventually resulting in profitability. The concept of understanding the minds of the target consumer has helped me to develop essential understanding of the basic elements of the product design process. Companies like Apple are increasingly using product design as an integral part of their business strategies. Product design is hence, not being used as a subservient aspect to marketing or manufacturing functions. The customer experiences are being regarded as the central ideas that can guide product design functions.  Design is being used as an essential expression of the changing needs and wants of the target customers (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). Moreover, design is being enhanced primarily to enhance the experiences of the customers after buying the product. Emphasis is being provided towards developing specific brand value through the product offerings. According to me this is an important factor that guides the market potential of the product offerings of enterprises like apple. I definitely agree to the fact the customer experience goes a long way towards determining the demand value of any given product. This is according to me the basic elements that contribute towards greater efficiency of the larger enterprises. I also strongly agree to the notion that design should be essentially used as an organizational strategy rather than a subsidiary marketing oriented functions. I have been able to understand the significance of effective product design towards ensuring the long term profitability of a firm. Moreover, consolidation and effective maintenance of the customer base takes place more efficiently if effective incorporation of design within the organizational functional activities are maintained. It is important to provide much emphasis on the preferences of the customers. Additionally, it is necessary that the products are valued essentially in accordance with what they are able to offer to the customers (Homburg, Schwemmle, and Kuehnl 2015).

Incorporating Design into Organizational Strategy

The course and the project that I am currently handling helped me to understand greatly about the various tasks that are required in order for effective product design maintenance. Most of the essential tasks are centered on the specific core tasks. The peripheral tasks are user needs analysis, technology implementation, pain point, first impression core tasks and other necessary elements. I strongly agree with this point as this can greatly enhance the product offering of the brand. For example if we consider Apple, then we can understand that integration of the software and hardware for enhancing optimal product performance can be seen through the manufactured products by the company. Throughout the duration of the masters’ project I was able to analyze the various steps involved in order to effectively design and produce a product that will enhance consumer experience. The steps that are involved are identification of target users, identification of the specific needs of the target users, prioritization of the core task for new users, identification of the key core tasks, design and innovation for better user experience, identification of required technology, identification of the application of innovation and designing the end products (Suri 2003). The systematic steps can be used greatly towards enhancing the product that is being offered. This is especially used by organizations such as apple to greatly enhance their product offering. According to me the core tasks are the most important part of product design. This is what I was able to understand through the evaluations of the prospects of product design towards ensuring organizational productivity. The core tasks often incorporate the findings and the conceptions of product design into greatly optimizing the design of the finished product (Tao et al. 2018). A very good example can be given of the continuous improvement of the user interfaces of the Apple products. The touch functions of the products, especially the iphone was systematically improved through the years in order to develop better user experiences. The needs of the users were very importantly identified by Apple. The iphone was significantly improved as it was identified that users are not happy with the imbalance that results from the discrepancies that arise due to the hardware not being properly integrated with the software. (Sauro and Lewis 2016) The users have complained about this significant issue that they generally face while using other products. This was noted by apple and subsequently incorporated as apple began to make products where the hardware components were optimized to create an effective hardware-software balance of the iphone. This greatly enhanced the performance of the iphone and apart from increasing the brand value of apple, it contributed to the increased usage value of iphone.

The Development of Core Tasks

The core tasks are focused towards what the customer will be doing with the product. This will essentially be the things that the customer will be doing with the product (Veiga and Weyl 2016). Understanding the core tasks will help the organization to understand the product value and subsequently the utility of the product for the customer. The next most important phase is the development of the product. The basic experience that the user will be getting from the product need to be optimized. However, the process is quite systematic as a number of ways in which the task can be approached is formed (Schöggl, Baumgartner, and Hofer 2017). Innovation comes into play at this part of the product designing process. Many solutions are created and from the same number of solution either the best solution is utilized or some of the better solutions are merged together to form a strong design solution that incorporates all the major elements of product design. Innovation is an important element when we consider production design.

The project has also helped to understand another important aspect of production design. The aspect of user experience is according to me one of the most important factors that contribute towards production design. Apple has always kept user experience at the forefront of its production design functions. Customer experience is also at times taken for granted by various organizations. This happens from assumptions based on the current trends in the market and customer expectations (Morris 2016). This can damage the long term productivity of the company in regards to profitability. Hence, what I have been able to essentially find from the course and the assignment is that innovation is a much required factor when an organization is trying to increase all round long term productivity. The user experience curve can be used effectively towards understanding user behavior. In this the journey of the user with the product can be traced. Customer experience is mostly about the feelings of the customer that can vary from person to person. It has to be taken for granted that the customer will definitely have both happy and unhappy moments with the product (Zawadzki and ?ywicki 2016). The focus should thus be towards providing a product that will be responsible for providing the customer or the user with more positive moments with the device. Thus, when making the final decision about using the product in the future, the customer can recall the more favorable aspects of the product rather than the unfavorable negative aspects (Kumar, Townsend, and Vorhies 2015). User experiences are also governed quite a lot by the expectations of the user. Brands like Apple focus towards making the expectations of the user more so that they can effectively optimize the user’s value through the end product design. Moreover, the course essentially helped me to understand that first impressions are much important while designing the product for generating value among customers. I did understood that first impressions are important, however, I strongly believe that there are more important aspects that can govern customer experiences. Impressions are definitely important while designing the product but when it comes to providing performance at the same time other factors greatly come into play (Luchs, Scott Swan, and Creusen 2016). Impressions are however, much necessary to develop effective initial impressions in regards to the perception of a product. Analyzing brands like Apple helped me to understand how user experiences were utilized effectively to enhance the product offerings of the brand. The brand carried out large scale researches in regards to understanding the demands, moods and essential wants of the customers. Hence, the factors like the atmosphere, staff, waiting and interior become great factors towards enhancing the experiences of the customers.

Innovation as a Key Component of Product Design

In determining the experience of customers from a specific product, the aspects of vision is also greatly used by the designers and engineers (Kolko 2015). These are the people with whom creativity rests. I was able to assess the significance of product design based on the mindset and creativity of the designers. However, this is a tough task as a range of different factors need to be essentially considered in order to help in the effective production of products. The major factors that need to be considered are cultural demographics, family monograph, sequences of life and technical creativity (Desmet 2018). The usage of a product depends on more things than simple usability for majority of the consumers (Kolko 2015). If the iphone is considered as a product, according to me it becomes an integral part of a person’s life in which important information in regard to the aspects of a person’s life is stored. Hence, the most important thing about product design is the generation of customer value. The customer’ views cannot be taken for granted in this regards.

Conclusively, it can be said that the assignment and the course helped me to understand the individual and group values that help in designing better products. It is important to consider that people can develop various conceptions about a given product. This can contribute towards the effectiveness of the product concerning profitability. A strongly designed product keeping in mind the factors that govern the customer’s product choice can greatly increase revenue of an organization.

References

Cayol, Andre, and Patrick Bonhoure. “Prospective design oriented towards customer pleasure.” In Design and Emotion, p. 113. CRC Press, 2004.

Desmet, Pieter. “Measuring emotion: Development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products.” In Funology 2, pp. 391-404. Springer, Cham, 2018.

Homburg, Christian, Martin Schwemmle, and Christina Kuehnl. “New product design: Concept, measurement, and consequences.” Journal of Marketing 79, no. 3 (2015): 41-56.

Kolko, Jon. “Design thinking comes of age.” (2015): 66-71.

Kumar, Minu, Janell D. Townsend, and Douglas W. Vorhies. “Enhancing consumers’ affection for a brand using product design.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 32, no. 5 (2015): 716-730.

Lemon, Katherine N., and Peter C. Verhoef. “Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey.” Journal of Marketing 80, no. 6 (2016): 69-96.

Luchs, Michael G., K. Scott Swan, and Mariëlle EH Creusen. “Perspective: A review of marketing research on product design with directions for future research.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 33, no. 3 (2016): 320-341.

Morris, Richard. The fundamentals of product design. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.

Sauro, Jeff, and James R. Lewis. Quantifying the user experience: Practical statistics for user research. Morgan Kaufmann, 2016.

Schöggl, Josef-Peter, Rupert J. Baumgartner, and Dietmar Hofer. “Improving sustainability performance in early phases of product design: A checklist for sustainable product development tested in the automotive industry.” Journal of Cleaner Production 140 (2017): 1602-1617.

Suri, Jane Fulton. “The experience of evolution: developments in design practice.” The Design Journal 6, no. 2 (2003): 39-48.

Tao, Fei, Jiangfeng Cheng, Qinglin Qi, Meng Zhang, He Zhang, and Fangyuan Sui. “Digital twin-driven product design, manufacturing and service with big data.” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 94, no. 9-12 (2018): 3563-3576.

Veiga, André, and E. Glen Weyl. “Product design in selection markets.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131, no. 2 (2016): 1007-1056.

Zawadzki, Przemys?aw, and Krzysztof ?ywicki. “Smart product design and production control for effective mass customization in the Industry 4.0 concept.” Management and Production Engineering Review 7, no. 3 (2016): 105-112.