Reflection - Visualization

Challenge    I love watching the TV show Shark Tank and often product ideas pop into my mind based on my casual  observation or incidental experience with a situation that is inconvenient, difficult, or problematic. My  background contains and MBA in entrepreneurship and undergraduate degree in electrical/engineering.  I have worked with complex technologies, but I have no experience with consumer product design.     I recently thought of a possible new product idea for the bathroom – basically a different type of soap  holder that offers a convenience not currently available in the marketplace. I searched existing products  on the web to understand “What Is”. From this I formed my vision(or hypothesis) of the function of the  product and a pretty good idea of what it should look like and the materials it should be made from. I  then began running the idea by family members to gain “market validation” and also discussed the  product idea with an invention service company for assistance with patenting and marketing.     Tool Selection and Application    The Visualization tool was appropriate at this point since sketches enable a better understanding of  possible product form and function. When I presented my idea to people, I started with a brief story I  crafted around the situational pain/inconvenience to observe the level of empathy I had. Then I verbally  described my solution.    The discussion moved quickly to a sketch. People really wanted to see an illustration of size, shape, etc  to understand the utility of the product. So, I would quickly draw my vision of what the product may  look like on a piece of scrap paper. They also wanted sketches to provide perspective on the  surroundings that the product fit into. At times people would begin to sketch their ideas or  enhancements to my idea. In speaking with an invention service company, the representative sketched  an enhancement that may improve patentability.     Insight    Upon reflection, I see there were a few flaws in my approach, which was based more on a  logical/analytic approach vs. a design thinking approach. I was customer-focused not customer driven  and was pushing my solution. To some extent though, it could be considered a learning launch, but it  was laden with plenty of confirmation bias. Overall, visualization was valuable in both communicating  product ideas and spawning new ideas or enhancements.       Approach    Going forward, I might interview/survey people to gain more insights and empathy for the situational  pain/inconvenience experienced. Visualization tools could be used by a customer/user group to  generate sketches of possible solutions, enabling a wider variety of innovative ideas. After seeing  patterns and narrowing the options, more detailed drawings of the product set in a variety of bathroom  layouts/decors could be used to test assumptions and what wows with a user group. This would help  identify the solutions that are good for costlier physical prototyping.

