Design & tech lead approach to product ideation

Ali McPhail, our Principal Industrial Designer, on identifying innovation opportunities for new product development.

We live in exciting times. Technological change is causing mass disruption, leading to many new solutions that are better for users and for the planet.

In automotive, electrification has been a catalyst for investment and innovation, opening the floodgates for all aspects of the car to be re-evaluated. Electrification is also spurring innovation in the cycling industry, with electric assist changing the rules for how a bicycle starts, stops, ascends a hill, or interacts with other technology. And in consumer electronic goods and gaming, sustainability is driving greater accountability on design, materials and product lifecycles.

All of this is great for TG0. Our designers are in the enviable position of having a disruptive core technology which has broad application and a very diverse team of people from different cultures and specialisms. This is a dream match when looking for design and innovation opportunities.

Those opportunities originate in two ways. In the first way, we’ll receive an inquiry from a brand, OEM or other partner for a project, based on a specific brief and their impression of our technology. Secondly, as we have shown with our eteeController, we can develop our own ideas of how and where our unique technology can be put to good use.

Theme-led Ideation

Themes such as electrification and growth industries such as VR, gaming, automotive and personal fitness are a constant source of discussion at TG0, because these are areas we believe could be exciting and demonstrate our strengths.

As a theme internally gathers traction we start an incubation discussion amongst a few key people to establish:

• Why the area is interesting (relevance)
• How it relates to our current portfolio and capabilities
• What momentum can be generated to build enough excitement to take to potential partners

An ideal development topic is also one where we can utilise our human machine interface (HMI) knowledge to give a great product experience for an application. If the theme, use case and technology match, we know we’re on to something special.  

Every Voice Matters

With a topic identified we organise a discussion with the entire team. We ask: what are our relevant strengths, and how could they translate into a better experience? Once we have identified a particular area we start an ongoing, open discussion channel for anything vaguely related that people may find of interest. And we ask our people to have a good think about ‘what could be’.

After a few days we convene and everyone gets a chance to elaborate on their ideas. Any idea and ‌format is encouraged — words, sketches, photographs, however the idea or thought can be articulated best.

TG0’s growing team represents 20 nationalities, and expert knowledge including industrial design, user experience, engineering, software, firmware, logistics, sourcing and manufacturing. This multidisciplinary background stress tests every idea, ensuring we devote our attention to the most feasible, most exciting, and most impactful potential projects.

Suitability and Scope

The TG0 team have highly-tuned appreciation of opportunities for great user experiences. But rather than delve broadly into UX alone, we focus on areas where we are regularly being asked questions along a theme, or more excitingly when broader markets are emerging where our technology and expertise could be appropriate.

Our proprietary knowledge is how to make almost any surface sense touch, pressure, or both. This is a broad and rich capability. Once we can determine that this capability – and our team’s skills and experience – could dovetail with an industry need or trend, the ideas usually flow fast and are captured live and openly over the space of a few days in a collaboration document.

This keeps us in ‘scope’. Without this ‘scope’ focus, there is so much possible, that it’s sometimes hard to know where to invest. If an idea relates to a sensing technique that we have proven, or could potentially become provable, it becomes a strong candidate for our idea bank. And if we have the skills to realise the idea, or fulfil a market need or opportunity then we highlight where we already know how to make the idea work and where development is required.

The Next Steps

High level market analysis determines if a potential solution will offer relevance, impact and revenue. All of our written or verbalised ideas need to be communicated with that audience in mind.

Illustration helps us to make these ideas more understandable to a broader audience. This can be through hand sketches, line drawing, renders, models or proof of concept prototypes. All the while we are considering who will eventually use the idea, why it is a better solution than what they had before, and how we can best communicate the benefits of the idea to them. The improvement can be in many areas, for example more accurate control, more intuitive control, fewer parts, easier to clean, more valuable materials, reduced cost, longer lifecycles or another sustainability benefit.

We then examine these ideas to ensure they are as watertight as possible. The team will quickly identify pitfalls, and it’s important to listen carefully, or sometime look for signs of what is not being said. If our technical and creative team get excited and see more potential than pitfalls then we can be fairly confident that we have something that our clients will love. And that’s when the real hard work begins.

Why the Team Matters

There are many famous (seemingly) lone inventors. But the great thing about ideation like this in a creative team is that the thinking lives on beyond a project. The whole team now have this small seed of an idea planted which can grow either into the next pitch or project deliverable for a client, or for our very own direct-to-consumer product.

This approach allows TG0’s design team to make objects which are not only aesthetically beautiful, but that are built on deeply integrated innovative technology with human needs as their core driver. And that means we can harness disruption, and imagination, and make the world a slightly better place.

++ Want to learn more about TG0’s processes? See a blog on our UX process here.