User experience is important but it's not everything: Designing for physical versus digital products

When clients approach us to help them design a digital product (a website or an application) considering user experience, we make recommendations which match the best both user and business requirements.

Unlike in the digital world, designing a physical product is no longer just about coming out with an interface which is easy to use, or finding the right balance between users and business needs. It gets more complicated than that. It involves other areas such as ergonomics, safety and packaging. You will also ought to work around various constraints and production considerations to achieve a good user experience as well as to optimise its gross margin return of investment. You no longer work solely with designers, developers and business analysts. The decision will have be made involving electronic and software engineers as well as the production team.

A product could have the most distinctive aesthetic, with the most ergonomic design and provides the best user experience. However, if it is hard to be manufactured, expensive to run or difficult to be serviced, it cannot be considered as a good product.

Furthermore it is much harder to do an update patch on a physical object than a digital product if you find something is wrong after they are in the production line or out in the market. This presentation discusses the elements that should be taken into consideration when designing for a physical product and how to get the right people involve at the right stage in the design process.