Advice Centre

The product design process can be a complex one involving cross-functional teams from within your own organisation working together, often with help from outside design experts. Regardless of whether you are developing a product entirely in-house or using an external product designer, a clear product design brief is essential if you want to be rewarded with a smooth-running project and a worthwhile outcome.

A product design brief is the key point of reference that both you and your design team can go back to for clarification at all stages of the design process.

All aspects of a brief benefit from input from as wide a range of people within your organisation as possible, not just a select few. Consulting widely means you're less likely to overlook important issues and details that could complicate the process later on, while the resulting brief will have 'buy-in' from people who feel they've been involved in creating it. People within your company can add value by interrogating the brief, ensuring nothing obvious is left out. And your external design partner will certainly want to interrogate the brief and come back with questions that may lead to further development of the brief before any work begins.

 
Start with the customer need

Successful new products should be based on what your research-based insights are telling you the customer could need and want in the future. This can be found from a range of sources including focus group research, customer advisory panels, analysis of your competitor products, trend information etc. The key here is to identify what insights you have gained that might help differentiate your new product from others on the market.

 
The market for the product

Information in this section is critical to understand the risk and financial return involved with new product development. It should include:-

• Potential market size and growth trends
• Anticipated market share
• Pricing range
• Competitive products or services
• Research of existing patents to identify any conflicts
• Other influencing factors on the market

 
Product attributes and specifications

Great care needs to be taken to ensure that product attributes and specifications directly connect back to the consumer problem/need you have identified and are trying to address. In this part of the brief you should clearly explain:-

Purpose
Where and what the product is used for? Do not think of your product in isolation. Fully understand the environment and context for use and how it may be used in connection with other products or processes.

Performance
What does the product have to do? Explain what the primary operating characteristics are, i.e. this product must be designed to work in wet conditions, be assembled for use in less than 30 seconds or be compatible with the full range of tractor engine brands.

Features
What additional things must it have? Apart from doing its job, what else will make it more appealing, useful and user-friendly? Does it need a non-slip handle, a child-proof cap, a non-graffiti surface? Will recyclability of all the components be required?

Reliability
What is the expectation for the product life? Have sustainability issues been considered?

Ease of repair
Is it designed for self-repair or does it need to be taken to an expert? Is a spare part included with the initial product? What is the estimated repair time?

Aesthetics
What about the look and feel for the user? How important is the ergonomics of the product? What about the choice of fabric or coating? Is there a product colour range it needs to match? What brand values need to be reflected in the look and feel? How will it sit against the competitor's range of products?

Packaging
What are the requirements for packing, labelling and handling? Does it need to fit in a standard-size shipping container, or a restricted freezer space at the supermarket? In terms of competitor packaging, what it must it do to stand out? Is sustainability a factor in purchase and does the packaging need to be recyclable?

Perceived quality
Does the quality reflect the company's standards and brand values? Does it need to be rugged, quiet, with a stain-free finish? Does it need to look expensive? Or practical and simple?

Scale and type of production
How much of this product are you aiming to produce and how is production being managed? What are the production constraints that need to be taken into account?

Cost
– what are your expectations? Outline what cost you expect or need the product to be produced for and also the cost of service. Costs should be broken down into:-

• Development costs
• Prototyping and pilot/testing costs
• IP protection costs such as patents, design registrations, trademarks
• Capital costs such as tooling, additional plant and machinery
• Manufacturing costs
• Marketing costs for packaging, and promotion
• Distribution costs such as warehousing, freight, import or export taxes

You will need to consider the selling price expectations of the retailer and identify if there is enough margin between your cost price and selling price to make a good profit and cope with any fluctuations in material costs, exchange rates etc.

 
Timescale

There are a number of milestones and go/no go points in product development. Any timescale needs to take account of the development process being used, the complexity of the development and the number of parties who are involved in the development process.

 
Other considerations

While a brief should be concise and cogent rather than rambling, it's also a good idea not to assume any knowledge on the part of the design team, and it's better to provide more detail, perhaps in the form of appended documents or signposts to other sources, than to leave possible question marks.

 
Don't fear flexibility

It's quite possible, once a project is underway, that a brief may need to change. This doesn't make it a bad brief, and provided changes are fully discussed and agreed they won't undermine the core brief.

A change in brief and to the scope of the project, may also mean that costs need to be revisited. A cost estimate may have been based on the first brief, but any changes to the brief should always be discussed in terms of their implications for production costs.

 

Acknowledgements and sources:

Getting Started: Developing a strategy and plan for a new product, Douglas G Boike and Jeffrey L Staley.
UK Design Council, Briefing a designer