User Context in product design
When I hit my home gym for the elliptical and get off the equipment within five minutes, I know that I could only follow this elliptical routine if I could do it while I am enjoying my favorite show or movie alongside.
I understand it’s hard for physical products such as elliptical to be designed for an individual’s personal choices but are rather designed to appeal to a critical mass of consumers. As I search for a bunch of accessories available to mount my phone or tablet to equipment, I have been thinking what’s the process for coming up with the product design.
While designing a product, are we considering design around “problem that product is designed to solve” or “problem solved along with how customers use the product with an eye on what are the other activities customer is involved with while using the product”?
As a buyer of organizing products for home, I often reuse products designed for a certain use and put them into a different use instead. Recently, I went into the kitchen section of a home store and purchased a pot lid organizer and used it to organize my purses instead. One product many uses, one product that goes from kitchen to closet. Likewise, there are many people who perform hacks by using a core product and enhancing it to meet an altogether different need.
While designing a product, are we thinking about what other needs can be addressed with the same design and thereby increasing the market for the product”?
