Although the realization of a product is the result of an important investment and effort, the success of the product directly depends on the user preferences. Design and investment experience of stakeholders may be considered sufficient for the emergence of a new product, but for a successful product development process, it is expected that this effort must be transferred into products which meets with the market requirements and user needs.
In order to increase product success, the market research carried out before investment are widely known. Although these studies can catch the gap in the market when managed correctly, they may be weak in terms of which features and skills the product should meet with users. At this point, “Design Research” methods are preferred as a way which directly focus on product features and user experiences.
Design research directly focuses on the user and investigates the product’s preferences, usage and problem-solving capabilities. It is aimed to strengthen the interaction between the product and the user through different research methods that may focus directly on the user or the product functions.
As Nevteknik, we provide design research service at 3 categories below;
Benchmarking
Analyzing the technical features of rival or similar products in the market in price / performance balance constitutes an important infrastructure for determining the capability and limits of the new product being developed.
In addition, the existing know-how in the industry can be discovered by benchmarking studies which can be carried out on the target product(s) with engineering point of view.
Customer / User Perception
Users make some perceptual classifications, especially for the preference of products which have different alternatives. In parallel, products have different visual identities besides the problems they tried to solve. It is known that different perceptual classes (reliability, durability, elegance, simplicity, etc.) obtained by material selection, colors or differentiation of design aesthetics may strengthen user preference.
By means of user perception research, it can be analyzed in which perceptual classes of the products in the market are evaluated by the users. And it is commonly used for evaluating existing products or concept design alternatives by investigating the perceptual background underlying user point of view. These results are significant reference for the creation of product identity.
User Experience
Products that can focus on the real needs of users with easily manageable features have high competitive potential in the market. User experience studies explore the functional capabilities of the product in terms of intelligibility, usability and problem-solving ability. The results obtained by specifically determined research methods are used to maximize product-user interaction.