This article is a transcription of episode #5 of IDology - the industrial design podcast by Mindsailors. You can watch the entire episode on YouTube or listen to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

In this episode Anita Rogoża, who is a designer and researcher at our company, sat down with senior designer Mikołaj Wiewióra, to talk about the Mindsailors’ industrial design process, how it helps Mindsailors develop new products, communicate with our clients how it helps describe both time and budgeting for each phase of product development.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

So we've met to talk about, I guess, the most important thing in our design studio: the process.

Anita Rogoża:

I guess it is the most important.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

So, to begin, there are many questions, but I believe the most important is how did we come to have six steps of the industrial design process, beginning with an idea and ending with a finished product?Why six? How can we talk about them? 

Anita Rogoża:

I think in answering that question, it would be important to mention that it all came out of our need to organize our work. At some very crucial moments when we were a smaller company and had a lot of work, we noticed that we had some issues while organizing our cooperation with our clients and how the projects were going. So it all started with our need to work better, I guess.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. Inside needs are something that drives innovation in a company, of course. The problem is that the projects we have are immensely different. So how is it possible that we have these distinctive six steps of the design process for designing a consumer electronic product that is small enough to put in your hand, and the same process can be applied to industrial machinery or the gyrocopter that we have in our portfolio? How is that possible?

Anita Rogoża:

That's true. The subjects or topics of our projects are very different. I don't know if you remember, but while we were designing our design process, we noticed that we were meeting very similar milestones along the way. So we had to find them, name them, and be sure that all of the team is on the same page regarding those milestones. And that helped us immensely. And those milestones are something we're putting in place to ensure that each phase of the project is completed. So, for example, during the pre-design, that big piece to be finished is a brief that we all need to accept, we and our client, during the concept phase. These are three concepts studied during the targeted conceptual study. It is the final version of the looks that our client is certain to continue with, and so on. So these are more like descriptions of what we need to finish than goals to meet along the way.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. Does this definition or the process that we use help us communicate with clients?

Anita Rogoża:

I think so, but you should maybe ask one of the business developers, because this is a tool that they really like, and I think it helps to introduce people outside of the industry to what we do for a living, what we offer as a company, and all of those services. And I believe it is also useful in communicating how complex the entire process of introducing new products to the market is. Because we now have manageable small phases and steps to take, we can simply go one after the other rather than tackling the massively complex issue of creating something new out of thin air.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. So, to sum up and recap, we have this design process to inform ourselves, as well as our clients and other stakeholders about the progress of the project. As a result, the progress can be measured, such as what next steps are required to deliver the product. 

I think that the big picture of the design process is clear. We needed to communicate and we needed to have this measurable roadmap for how we will deliver these products. I think that we should jump into the numbers. Into the steps that we've got.

Maybe you can describe them in short, and maybe then we will have some more in-depth questions about these steps that we have. 

Anita Rogoża:

I believe we should begin with pre-design because it is the most important stage of any design process because what we end up with at the end of that phase is the brief, which is set in stone, unchangeable, and helps us set goals with our clients. So it must be a period of constant questioning and gathering as much information as possible from our client, the market, and their target group.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. So you mean that the pre-design is a step in which no design happens, but it's still one of the most important steps in the design process.

Anita Rogoża:

It is like preparing your stage or your toolset for having the job done. Sometimes we do some interviews during that phase. Sometimes we ask some people with expertise for their knowledge during that phase. So it's quite complicated and will take a lot of effort, but as you mentioned, nothing has been designed yet. It's just about collecting all the necessary data.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. Good. We'll talk about the time frame for each step, I believe later, because it's not that important right now.I think the most important is understanding the whole process without going deeper into details.

Anita Rogoża:

Details are always different.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

I think we'll miss something if you start to go into details with each step. So, the second step of our design process, I think, is one of the most creatively rewarding for the designer.

Anita Rogoża:

And it's quite spectacular because this is the point at which we're creating things and building on the idea that the client brought to us.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

We tend to aggregate all of these ideas from pre-design, our expertise or field of expertise, and our experience as designers. And we put all these things into a conceptual phase, as it's called. So we deliver the most spectacular aspect of our work. 

Anita Rogoża:

Yes, the concept phase. And conceptual design is always a very important part for designers because it is the first time we show something we have worked on for weeks, sometimes as some sort of visualization and stuff like that.So this is the first time we have some examples to share with our clients about what they're planning to do with their businesses in the future.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Right. Okay. So, so from my perspective, because I'm a designer as well, delivering concepts is difficult because these concepts have to meet all these criteria that were mentioned, but it often happens that some of the criteria or requirements are not being stated, and we have to distill this from our common sense of understanding of the client and then put it into the conceptual phase. Do you agree with me or do you have some different perspectives?

Anita Rogoża:

I think I can agree because we are creating and showing something that has never existed before for the first time. So it always feels a little bit like aiming for a goal that is not, like, set anywhere because there is that very organized engineer part of the brief, but there's also that part of emotions of what our client likes, what they believe their clients like, or even what they're trying to build with their brand. Some parts of the brief are still uncertain, but I believe we are doing everything we can to keep that part as small as possible.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Well, so that's why we've got more than one concept in this phase. We've got three. As a result, they are considering the big picture of what our clients might require.

Anita Rogoża:

We usually try to tell or show them three different paths or scenarios they can take because we know their story can be told in at least three different ways. And usually, we are also talking about that during the pre-design phase. We're talking about how different those concepts should be for them to help them choose, because some clients want to see very different directions they can explore with their project further. And some of them prefer to see other concepts as being more closely related, for example, because the decision to lead the way is always available. We are just there to help.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

And it's important to mention that we are doing everything we can to help. We are not the clients themselves. We are serving them and turning their ideas into reality but as with other pieces of art like paintings, every creation is not perfect. That's why we have the third step in our design process, which is called targeted conceptual study. And what are the differences between the former and the conceptual study?

Anita Rogoża:

It starts with the choice that we are not making. It starts with the choice that our client makes. I'm referring to selecting one of the three concepts to pursue. And then the roles switch a little bit because we are not asking questions, but we are asked questions because our clients sometimes ask us what they can change in that concept to make it more suitable for their needs, to make it more attractive in their opinion, for example. Or this is the stage of the project where we are tuning the look and design to what our client needs. Because finally, we have some examples, as I mentioned before, to talk about, and we can see how it can look in the future.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes, yes. This is important because we cannot speak in the void, as I like to say. Because when we are speaking on general facts or general arguments, it's not possible to focus on the functionality, on the impression that we have, etc. Without this picture that we produce during these phases.

Anita Rogoża:

The first impression is really important. So that's why I think when we have it, we can work better, and we can kind of be on the same page with the clients because sometimes we are just like an imagination to rent. And creativity to rent. And that's what helps us talk with someone who doesn't have any resources available.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Ok, we’re half-way to having a product. If the first step was pre-design, the second step was the conceptual phase, and the third step is to conduct a targeted conceptual study to generate this idea, this 3D-looking thing that we know that in the end the product might look like this, but how to make THAT into reality?

Anita Rogoża:

We have a few more steps to go. And the next one is mechanical design, where we focus primarily on design insight because the targeted conceptual study is just a visualization, a rendering of some ideas. But these are just floating shapes, I would say, in general. As a result, we need to make it more engineered in order to make some room inside for the electronics or possibly connect the housing together. We're working on things that are usually unseen and unspoken about when a regular person is using the object. So, I'd say it's focusing on pure functionality and engineering.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. But is it possible that we've developed the concept without looking at these aspects before?

Anita Rogoża:

No, our concepts need to be technically correct. A design concept always necessitates some level of consideration. In a previous phase, we focused mainly on the looks and the ergonomics, I would say. But we are not focusing as much on the inside. So we are thinking about the size of the electronics, for example, but we are not designing the mounting of those electronics yet. So the mechanical phase is like delving deeper into the designing process.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

And thinking about the technology itself, how this part might be manufactured, etc.

Anita Rogoża:

At this point, it should be possible to narrow down the technology that will be used to manufacture the future product. Because some requirements of different technologies might influence the inside structure or even the outside structure of the object.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. Should we mention that the mechanical model or the model—the 3D model—after the mechanical phase might be a bit different than the conceptual one?

Anita Rogoża:

I believe we should have mentioned this, and I believe we usually do, especially in this day and age when, for example, the electronic component market is quite fluid, and we are unsure whether the components we intend to use in that electronic piece, for example, will be available to buy.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes. So, even though we are designing hardware and a physical product, we must allow for some kind of agile methodology, such as the ability to tweak the design.so that it is possible to manufacture in the future.

Anita Rogoża:

And it is a challenge, but I think that is a challenge that is at the very base of that industry of industrial design, I would say, because it's our role to kind of fight for that design and ergonomics and not to give up on those changes and requirements without thinking how to damage control, I would say.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Damage control in hardware is really important. We must anticipate the worst-case scenarios. I believe this is more common in software though. Because once we design something physically, it's not that easy to change it if it's not software. Whereas the opposite direction is a piece of software where you can change every little aspect of the entire system in, I don't know, maybe days. Maybe hours. It's just a matter of time.

Anita Rogoża:

I think it's a very iterative process. So we can, for example, design some version of that 3D model. We prototype it, we test it, and we improve our design. And again, we prototype it, we test it, and we improve our design. So this is something that never happens in a single go or take. It always takes time because we never know how the materials will react.We cannot predict how the electronics will fit inside on the first try. But it is important to look for those solutions and to look for them in the physical world already. So it is, as I mentioned, iterative.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. We'll also focus on the word "prototyping". Maybe not in a very detailed way, but for sure, it's worth mentioning that the industrial design process is a process of prototyping and improving the prototypes, and making different prototypes for each project for a different use. But I think that we should still focus on the process itself. Of course, prototyping is an exciting and important activity. Let's go through this waterfall process that we have. If, for whatever reason, everything goes perfectly well after the mechanical phase and we get this model in one shot, what comes next?

Anita Rogoża:

I think we should switch roles a little bit for the next phase. DFM, design for manufacturing, and this is the phase in which I believe you are more experienced than me. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about how to improve or maybe change the mechanical model that seems to work and seems to look as we planned, but it's not really manufacturable yet.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. Excellent choice. I believe that DFM is not only for making something manufacturable, because the design is possible to manufacture with different techniques using different technologies. But the problem is that it's not efficient. It simply cannot be efficient yet. Each manufacturing technology and even the distinct company that is going to manufacture things or products for us has its own abilities and constraints. So they work on their inputs, what they have in their heads as ideas as they learn about manufacturing. And they give you, as a designer or a company, hints on how to manufacture this part more efficiently using a different technology, for example, or a different material. But when we have different materials, we have to maybe switch to more detailed drawings because maybe the tolerances are different. Or the dimensions should be different because, for example, the wall thickness is not enough for this material. These are all minor steps in the manufacturing process, but having a thorough review of the objects you've designed is always preferable to not having the DFM process, because you can of course properly make molds out of the design after the fourth phase, or you can manufacture it by CNC 3D printing, or whatever. But when you step into manufacturing and you don't want to lose money, you have to rethink the part from the manufacturing perspective. It's not only the technology itself that makes you money or makes you save money. But sometimes it's what follows the production of the parts, because you must then assemble them. And of course, there is another term that is called "design for assembly". It's important that you design not only for manufacturing but also the part to be assembled in the next step. So when you have, for example, three parts that are cheap, it's okay if you manufacture or produce 100 pieces because you don't care that it takes a little bit more time to assemble them. But once you have thousands or hundreds of thousands of products, you start to count the time. Because you have to be efficient because time is money, you have to be more efficient. And when you lose one second on one single product, you lose 100,000 seconds on a product that is manufactured at this scale. So it's sometimes more efficient to design the part from scratch again, to be one part instead of three, so you don't have to assemble it, and you, of course, invest your money in this part or in the mold, in the tool, whatever, but you don't lose time, so you don't lose more money. So it's important, but I think that another important thing to mention is that DFM is not for everyone. Because when time comes to start production on a small scale, it's not that important for this to be as deeply focused on efficiency, but you should focus more on delivering the product. Delivering is also difficult. And I think that it is a moment when we should speak about step number six, which is production supervision.  

Anita Rogoża:

First I just want to summarize how I see this phase, because for me, it's more or less tuning or adjusting the already existing mechanical design to the needs of specific subcontractors, possibly while considering the desired quality and the client budget. That's all I had to say. But the next phase, the supervision of production, I believe is even more crucial regarding the quality and premium quality, for example, of products.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes, quality is important, but this step is not only about quality. I think that this step is still about delivering the product. Because every industrial design project is a collection of small details that culminate in a product. Of course, it's the conceptual phase, but you meant to mention small details in the mechanical phase, such as small ideas that must be materialized, then implemented into the design, and repeated with a certain quality. So it is not only about the quality, but of course the quality drives the product perception because, when you get a product that is at a lower price point, you do not expect it to have good quality. But more and more we expect the products to be of good quality, so we do not only have to manufacture parts within certain technologies, but of course we have to check if it's maintained quality. So that's why we, as designers, probably know better what to expect from the vendor or the manufacturer, because it's not always 100%. Because our clients aren't always perfectly integrated into the manufacturing process. They are just not into the design. But sometimes there are clients, for example, whose expertise is in software and who do not have experience in physical product development because they have experience in software product development.

Anita Rogoża:

Which is also iterative, but much faster and less expensive.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes. However, they sometimes expect us as a company with experience with physical products to ensure that the products made by third-party vendors are good because they need to know that before paying them a large sum of money for manufacturing. So, after manufacturing there are still all of the things in which marketing must participate.

Anita Rogoża:

Launching the products, launching the campaigns.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Taking this product into the market to wrap it up. So we are in this step between the idea and manufacturing, but after manufacturing, we are giving the job to the professionals that are taking care of the product so it can be on the market.

Anita Rogoża:

I will have one more question for you. We briefly mentioned time and cost estimation, but do you believe it is possible to precisely estimate the time that we will spend on something in terms of cost, that something will require a certain amount of money at each stage of the project? 

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

We've been speaking about it for, I think, months or years—years even—and it is possible, but not in the whole design process. It is possible between steps one and three. We usually design a product for a client who, there are exceptions, but we usually design for a client who has a clear idea. He or she usually has the target group and the expected price point. So he already has some constraints for the project that he wants us to design. But if we don't have this, it's not that easy to estimate this cost, even on the first phase. But if we are speaking of the most usual scenario, we are usually able to quote a cost estimate for the first three phases, like the pre-design up to a targeted conceptual study. Why so? We've already quoted and completed several hundred projects, and we know that at this stage, we're usually creating concepts rather than products. It's much easier to estimate and control for us. We know how big a team we need for a specific project. We can estimate how many people and how long it will take to complete this project and deliver the expected quality. By quality, I mean the number of concepts and the difficulty of the design; for example, designing a glass is easier than designing a plane. Of course, when we are speaking of glasses, there are hundreds of thousands of different shapes. And how to make this one unique is, of course, also a challenge, but of a different sort. It's a stylistic challenge, or perhaps we're looking for technologies that haven't yet been deployed in the glass industry. But of course, it's a matter of research on some kind of proposition, like a conceptual proposition. How might this part look? As a result, forecasting is a little easier. But the most crucial part of delivering the product is the second half of our design process. And it should be. Concerning "phase four" and "phase five", we dislike estimating this time because we do not know what the topic is yet at that point.

Anita Rogoża:

And we don't know what we don't know yet.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes. We don't know what we don't know. I would like to switch roles once again. And I'd like to ask you about prototyping, because that's a topic for another podcast or talk. But regarding prototyping in the design process, how does prototyping fit into these steps? Should we think of prototyping as one particular step, or should we think of prototyping as an ongoing process?

Anita Rogoża:

I think it is the second, we should talk about a process of prototyping because prototypes come to help us designers on basically each stage of the project, but they have different purposes. So, for example, after the conceptual phase, we can prototype the general shape or general size of the design object. And this will allow us to estimate the benefits and drawbacks of each of them. During the conceptual phase, this can sometimes help our clients decide which of the concepts to pursue further; we can prototype the planned surface finishes and planed colors and see how they might look in real life. And that's also a helpful thing, especially with those projects that help a company launch themselves into existence. So when they need to, for example, gain funding. They just need a defined concept to proceed further, rather than a full mechanical and functional prototype. 

As I mentioned, the prototypes are also very important during the mechanical phase because they are there to provide us with knowledge on how to improve the design of the things we make. And then, those prototypes on the mechanical phase can also be different because sometimes they're made to check if the housing fits together, and sometimes those prototypes are made to maybe test the idea of how to assemble electronics inside that device. So look at different prototypes, look at different things, and this is definitely a tool for a designer that can be useful at each phase. I believe that even during the DFM or even making the injection mold, some of the first batches of production during that time can be called prototypes because the injection mold is not ready to go at the moment. It is finished to be milled, for example. We need to tune it a little bit as well. This is also a form of prototyping.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. So you started from step two. We can prototype the concept. We can put the idea that we have on the table in a scale or a one-to-one scale; it's a matter of budget and whether the one-to-one scale is really necessary. But how about prototyping at the stage of pre-design?

Anita Rogoża:

I wouldn't call it prototyping. I think it's easier to call it a proof of concept, because sometimes during the pre-design, when we are kind of testing the grounds and testing what we can do and what we cannot do, we need to find out if the idea that's behind the product will work. For example, we can create a very crude version of a mechanism that will be used in that project to see if it is something we can proceed with; if it is, we can include it in our brief and then build that design onto it. So it's also testing, but I'd say it's testing the general idea.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

So a proof of concept is a prototype. But it's not a prototype to test certain functionality; it's a prototype to test the idea. Say that; that's why we call it "proof of concept" rather than a prototype.

Anita Rogoża:

And because sometimes proofs of concept are more of the R&D part of the project, and R&D has a totally different nature than the design process, So that's why I would like to separate them.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. I think that we have missed one little thing that makes the design process huge rather than small. It's known as the time. Because so far we have been speaking about this process, like we are going to work on Monday and starting with step number one, we are searching for different ideas. We're concentrating more on discovering possibilities, client needs, and so on. We'll create three beautiful—or three, four—I'm not sure what to call them—but usually three concepts. So we create them, and then our clients look at them and say, "Wow."or says, "All right, it's good, but I'd like to improve concept number 2.". Then we jump into the targeted conceptual phase on Wednesday, and then we do the mechanical model on Thursday, and on Friday, we are ready for DFM. Is that true?

Anita Rogoża:

It's not true, you know. I regret to inform you that it takes years to complete the entire process from the initial idea to the completed project or product. It's easier to estimate the time spent on the first three phases, and as you mentioned with the costs. And it's harder to estimate how much time we spend on the later phases of the project. And this isn't always the fault of the iterative nature of those phases, but also, for example, starting the conversation with subcontractors during the DFM phase and doing all of the legal work required for a large corporation. It can also take six to eight months sometimes, for example, due to non-disclosure agreements and stuff like that.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

So let's maybe separate these steps into timeframes so that our clients might have a better understanding of how much time each step takes so that they can know what to expect from us and from themselves regarding budgeting and time framing the project, because it's not that easy to introduce a product into the market. Let's start with pre-design. How much time do we, as designers at our company, spend on a proper pre-design phase?

Anita Rogoża:

So let's just agree that we’ll talk about, say, a medium-complexity project. It's not easy, but it's also not difficult.

Pre-design for such an object that doesn't require the proof of concept, that will take about three or four weeks even because collecting and excavating all the knowledge from our client's heads can take weeks because we need a lot of data, and then we have the conceptual phase, which will take about six to eight weeks for three concepts, I would say.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

What takes so long? I know it's not a long time for a designer, but six weeks or eight weeks is two months of waiting for the perfect three concepts that we want to see.Why does it take so much time?

Anita Rogoża:

We never have three concepts. We usually show three concepts, and we usually make much more of them with a big team to collect the best three to share with our client. I would say at this phase, the bigger team comes to a place, so we have a lot of people to maybe brief or introduce to the project. They will have to conduct their research. And then the creative part starts, and we are starting from nothing. We don't have any ideas before we start to draw, start to 3D model, or maybe start to sculpt in clay. And then we are creating much more than just three concepts. We are just showing the three best concepts that are building the whole spectrum of possibilities that our client can explore with their idea. So that takes a long time, imagining how the stuff should look in our heads on paper. And then we have the next phase when we have to take these concepts into the engineering software or the rendering software when we are preparing the visual part of what we are presenting. So that takes up to two weeks sometimes because we need to show not only how that product will look in the sleek studio but also how it would look in real life. So this is also time-consuming. Yeah.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Okay. So breaking up these eight-week periods, or even six-week periodsit turns out that we only have two weeks for design. We've got two weeks for preparation. Two weeks for design and two weeks for presenting or making the presentation for the client, because it still takes time. So, of course, sometimes we do these processes in parallel because, when you discover the possibilities, you already have some concepts in your head; you are just making them better.

Anita Rogoża:

And we try; we also like to see how things are going along the way. So we meet, work with the whole team, and check to see if all of the concepts that we are working on have all of the requirements regarding all of the constraints, etc. 

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Yes. We have to make reviews. We need to double-check a few things to ensure that we are producing concepts that respond to the brief. That was set in the pre-design phase. Phase one entails a one-month pre-design period?

Anita Rogoża:

A month is typical.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

because the conceptual phase is about two months. So we have three months. Already passed. How about the targeted conceptual study?

Anita Rogoża:

It depends. Sometimes it takes a week or two because our clients don't want to implement any changes in their design. That's like a very dream scenario, I would say. But sometimes we have to work a little bit harder to make it look the way they want it to, to maybe not only make our customer happy but also the designer happy because we are trying to work in a way that also satisfies us. So we are also in another phase where we are facing some challenges meeting different inside and outside requirements, I would say. However, it usually takes between one and three weeks. 

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

While we are speaking of the conceptual phase, or the first half of the process, we can say or estimate that it takes more or less four to six months.

Anita Rogoża:

That's a safe guess.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Perhaps we shouldn't delve too deeply into the mechanical phase of DFM and manufacturing because, as you've already stated, getting manufacturers on the same page can take months. So, these legal components are supply chain components.

Anita Rogoża:

Or waiting for the tooling company to accept our project.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

And certification.

Anita Rogoża:

Medical certification. Yes.

Mikołaj Wiewióra:

Even routine certification for each consumer electronic product, such as EMC certification for electromagnetic products, requires time. So this process as a whole could take months, 2, 3, 4, and 5 months, all the way up to a year and a half. Or even two years. We have examples in our portfolio of products for which we developed a concept and which were manufactured within half a year, but we also have the longest-awaited product, which took nine years from concept to manufacturing.But the fun fact is that it was not the problem of the product itself.

The project was straightforward because it was mechanically simple. However, the client did not have time to implement this idea into the market, but he did so eventually. So, seeing the long-term contract awarded after nine years of conceptualization was really cool. So we concentrated on the process and the timelines that we have covered, and I believe the most important thing we have covered is the budget and costs of such a project. This depends on the complexity and scale as very minor details may raise the price and budget. And even big changes might bring the price down. So speaking of price, without having a baseline or an idea of what to cover, I think it is not very relevant. As a result, I believe that not only do we understand the process, but so do our listeners. I hope so. Thank you for the interesting conversation.

 

Mikołaj Wiewióra is a senior designer at Mindsailors. He has extensive experience in leading teams of designers and engineers on all stages of the design process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anita Rogoża is a researcher & designer at Mindsailors. Her priority is on making functional designs that are both user and environment friendly.