| related case studies |
Professionals involved in product development, no matter the industry, have found the Concept System an ideal way to identify the desired or ideal elements of a product or program, organize them into planning modules, and get focus group feedback on preferences or values of the product elements. The whole process generally takes less time than typical focus group exercises, and the results are much more reliable and easy to compare. An example:
The Challenge:
A large consulting firm had as its client one of the major telecommunications
research and service companies in the world.
The "futuring" division was tasked with developing a prototype of an information
appliance for the year 2020--an integrated product that would be widely used.
The Solution:
CSI worked as a partner/team member of the consulting company's client team,
and guided the client through the brainstorming "futuring" exercise of surfacing
characteristics or elements of the product.
Participants, including technology designers, marketers, executives, and product development partners, organized and rated the characteristics on several criteria: general value, achievability, consumer preference, and so on.
Results:
The client's resulting concept map described all the elements of a very forward-looking product.
- The ratings provided information about relative preference by subgroups, and priority in terms of potential design scheduling of the elements.
- The project gave the client a new way of looking at their product design workshops, one of the standard processes they had traditionally performed in a much more time consuming way.
- Designers had a "road map" of product design, that they were able to refer to throughout the design process, measuring completion, satisfaction and other time-series measures.