New product development often aims to meet customer expectations, increasing the need for extensive market research. Here are three research methods to employ for new product development.

Ethnography

Designing and developing a new product is all about meeting customer expectations. Sometimes all you need is close observation of customer behavior and what they’re looking for in a specific product to determine how to create the most innovative new product.

Ethnography is an incredible research method in this case. It refers to observational research where you take a closer look at people’s responses towards a product like yours and their feedback on it.

Your observations can help you keep customer perceptions in mind when prototyping a product and carrying it through its phases towards manufacturing.

Surveys

Sometimes observations may not be enough to meet your new product development needs. This is where target market surveys come in. Surveys are an integral component of both qualitative and quantitative market research. Therefore, it’s critical to incorporate them into your product development research process.

Surveys are meant to ask specific questions directly from target customers to learn about their interpretation and opinions about your product. These can be verbal or written, based on the way you want to document people’s answers and use them for your new product development.

Competitive Assessments

A competitive assessment can also be referred to as an analysis of an existing product when compared to the prototype of your new product. It’s essentially an assessment of your competitors and how consumers interact with their products. This can help you make reliable assumptions about your product, allowing you to design it accordingly.

There’s no doubt how incorporating the above-mentioned research methods can significantly contribute to the design for manufacturing a product. Therefore, some of the best product design companies often rely on their research outcomes to design and develop the most effective product every time.

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