Developing great products is an art in itself and one that requires experience and expertise in design aesthetics and technicalities of high-quality well-designed products that will fly off the shelves.
Outsourcing your product development and branding needs to a seasoned product design company is a great idea, but you need to ask some important questions before you entrust them this critical task.
40 Questions to Consider Before You Hire a Product or Packaging Design Team
- Do you have experience designing this or similar products?
- Do you have the capabilities for end-to-end product development, from ideation to production?
- How do you keep up to date with latest trends in my industry?
- Do you understand this industry and this particular product category?
- What is your design philosophy?
- What is your designing process?
- How do you obtain the user persona hypothesis on which you’d base the product development?
- What sets you apart from other leading design and development companies?
- How much value do you place upon user experience versus visual appeal of a product?
- Do you have the required expertise in graphic and structural design?
- What all materials have you worked with so far?
- Are you willing to sign an NDA to assure us you won’t work with our competitors?
- How often have you had repeat clients?
- Can you share some of your success stories from this industry?
- Do you have the necessary infrastructure for high-quality manufacturing?
- Can you production and supply chain handle high volumes?
- What all do I need to provide in the project brief?
- Do you also provide supply chain services?
- What is the budget for product design only versus product design, manufacturing and delivery?
- Can I get a breakdown of the pricing of the different services offered by you?
- Do you processes allow cost optimization to reduce the overall cost of a project?
- Who is in charge of product designing for this category of products?
- What is the usual turnaround time for key decisions and who makes them?
- What is the usual time taken from obtaining client brief to developing a sample?
- Do you have specialists assigned to each product category?
- What is the background of your subject matter experts (SMEs)?
- Who all will be working on designing my product/packaging?
- Who will be my point of contact for this project?
- What product analysis services are included in your offer? Do you offer failure analysis?
- What kind of prototyping do you offer?
- How many team members will work on this project? Can we meet them?
- How many design options will I get?
- What are the timelines for project delivery? How good is your team at meeting deadlines?
- Our brand prefers functionality over features. Can you successfully incorporate that in the design as well as the packaging?
- What about last-minute glitches? Is your team equipped to troubleshoot?
- Can you lay out a step-by-step process for my project?
- Do you have a dedicated client servicing team to answer our queries?
- Will you assist in running a trial once the product is ready?
- Are you equipped and flexible enough to incorporate customer feedback into product improvement?
- Do you have an action plan in place in case the project does not proceed as planned?
The product design champions at Jansy believe that a great design should not only encourage a potential customer to try a new product, it should also make the product convenient to use—only then will a consumer make a repeat purchase. So aesthetics plus functionality is the name of the game when it comes to successful product designing.
Choosing the right design company is as important as picking the right kind of product to manufacture. You expect your product idea to be shaped into a real product that people will be inclined to buy, and buy again. A product development firm that has industry experts at the helm and design champions doing the core job will be able to give you your money’s worth while meeting all your requirements and adhering to the deadlines.
So ask the right questions and pick a design company that can deliver on its promise of creating a superlative product that will make your competition break into a sweat while you enjoy the success of a great product.