3 January 2020

How design thinking can accelerate your brand innovation

Brands of all sizes are trying to respond quickly enough to changing consumer preferences. However, for brands to truly understand these needs is a real challenge. Regularly collecting data from customers can be useful but is it enough for brands to innovate? Innovation in business can mean introducing new services or products or improving existing methods to affect a positive change. To keep pace with innovation in a fast-changing business environment, design thinking is your next competitive advantage.

What is design thinking?

It is a dynamic approach to developing solutions. In this article, we will explore more on how it can be applied to product design. So, the traditional way of approaching problems is fixing a problem as it occurs. We keep adding until a product achieves the desired outcome. This means that if a solution is ineffective, the process would start over again. As a result, it could arrive at the solutions that might not even answer the problems.

In contrary to the traditional approach, design thinking is when we explore problems first. Before even thinking about a solution, it starts with understanding the user needs and behavior. It is a human-centered approach of empathizing with the user to gain insights. It is an iterative process, redesigning and prototyping can occur along the way.

The point is to generate solutions and reduces risks. This allows ideas to be validated before they are built. In the end, it is about defining what is essential and bringing the viability and feasibility aspects together. This often brings a result that is beyond the initial expectations.

So how does design thinking fit into the product innovation process? When a brand looks at the problems from the human perspective, it delivers the right forms and features to the right people. It is shaping the experience of the whole customer journey. Brands that acknowledge customer motivations and behavior are creating tremendous opportunities and values for their business. It should be implemented from the start, from concept creation through the development process to product launch.

Design thinking is not only best suited for product design but it is also valuable in the business context. It provides a competitive advantage to a business when being the first to solve the customer’s needs. By going through the iteration process of turning problems into questions, you can see whether an idea is heading in the right direction. You should ideally have design thinking as a part of your business strategy to engage customers with relevant experience or solutions. With that in mind, you will be able to redefine the values your business has to offer.

We believe that by applying this approach to the design process, the final product can create a bigger impact. WOOF is a dual user-centric solution created to enhance dog and human relationship. It is an integration of physical and digital products that cover the holistic aspect of pet caring. The overall concept for product design, branding and UI was validated and developed using real inputs from experts and user observation. The result is a solution that is accurately designed for future advancement in the pet-tech industry.

Our designers and creative thinkers at Appart_ can create innovative and feasible product solutions to help your business grow and adapt to the marketplace. We are curious, we observe, and we like to challenge ourselves. We push the boundaries of design while ensuring the integrity of the human-centered concept. Our awarded projects for product design have proven that you will be working with a team with a design thinking mindset. Get in touch with us today to learn more.

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