Design Thinking Is Critical to Hardware Product Development

Why Design Thinking Is Necessary For Hardware Startups

As humans, we feel empathy daily. It’s an extraordinary experience of the human condition. We feel it through art—watching a film about someone experiencing something foreign to us, yet we can be moved to tears. We also need it to sustain connection in our communities—when we tell a story to our friends about a bad day, we want them to understand our feelings and actions. There is no doubt that empathy makes for a better society, but we often overlook this need for empathy when creating products.

?Products, whether used for pleasure or necessity, are utilized daily for a purpose. A detail that seems small can subconsciously lead us to utilize a product more. When Oral B wanted to upgrade their electric toothbrush, they enlisted designers to add more functions. However, the designers found that brushing teeth is an unconscious act that people do out of necessity. Adding more functions only adds more stress. They found that the product could be better if the user experience was upgraded to make brushing teeth an easier task. So instead, the designers offered a design that made it easier to charge a toothbrush when traveling and make the process of ordering replacements more convenient. This type of empathy in a design approach is coined as “design thinking.” At Hatch Duo, design thinking is the core of our work and we think it’s necessary for the success of a product.

Design thinking is the leverage that makes companies like Apple successful. We always hear that Apple products are “user friendly,”- that we don’t have to be technology savvy to use all sorts of devices- a tablet, a tv, a laptop. By keeping “users'' and customer needs at the forefront of the design process, Apple products are used and desired by the masses.

At Hatch Duo, we define design thinking as a 5-step process for identifying a problem and laying the groundwork for its solution. We contribute the success of our product development to this process. As a hardware startup, rigorous planning, exploration, testing, and validation are involved. The design thinking process can ultimately lead to better products and solutions that meet client's needs and increase the likelihood of success in product development.?

This 5-step process ensures that we use every opportunity to implement design thinking. This process can be broken down into five steps:

To understand the advantages of design thinking, we first need to define it.

Empathize: Understanding the customer's needs and desires is the first step in the design thinking process, including observing people's behavior and habits in their environment. During the pandemic, we partnered with Rubbish, an app that maps and tracks litter. We built a rubbish beam to collect trash. Picking up trash is seen as a typically gross and tedious activity, so we wanted to change that experience. The rubbish beam we designed has a Pokémon-go meets DoorDash feel—gamifying the experience of picking up litter and making it a fun activity. We even went to San Francisco and picked up trash ourselves which gave us the empathy to understand the environment, and the experience we were designing for, such as ergonomic fatigue. The playful experience we wanted to create while being conscious of environmental factors was then facilitated by our industrial design and engineering teams.

Empathy sometimes means getting our hands dirty, literally.

Define: Our designers must define their problem or opportunity by identifying what needs to be done or accomplished. It’s really important to us to be on the same page as the client before moving forward. If a client comes with a pilot, this involves identifying any significant issues that need to be addressed. Simultaneously, we work with the client to specify any constraints at this stage of development such as budget restrictions.

Our client Robin Healthcare came to us at an early stage to help them solve the problem of clinical documentation for doctors. We helped them design Robin Scribe- an artificial intelligent assistant which helped streamline the clinical documentation process using voice/video so that doctors could focus on their patients instead of notes. It features a camera, rotatable cover for patient privacy, and low-powered LEDs for indication of activity. Hatch Duo worked with the team at its early stages directly on-site in clinical settings to understand the environment and experience we were designing for. We used documents like Product Requirements Documents in order to define the feature set, components, and environment this product was to function in. (Defining the environment requirements, and the outcomes we desired, were helpful in the targeting of the development and design process). Furthermore, we defined the environmental context in order to appropriate the aesthetics. The design takes essence from the Robin bird while maintaining a clinical friendly look of professionalism, and it led to Robin Healthcare’s Series A raise of $11.5 M in funding.

Defining aesthetic themes for Robin Healthcare.

Ideate: Once our designers have identified the problem or opportunity with the client, we move on to ideation—the third stage of design thinking. Ideas are generated through brainstorming sessions with other team members. We use sketching, CAD, and other digital and physical means to share our ideas. In this phase, designers collaborate with other team members (such as our engineering team), who may have different perspectives on how to solve a problem or satisfy a customer's needs.

Our ideation of the Rubbish Beam.

Design concepts of the Solgaard Solarbank Boombox, an all-in-one power bank, Bluetooth speaker, and solar-powered unit.

Prototype: The primary objective of this phase is to demonstrate the viability of a concept or theory by developing prototypes of possible solutions. Methods such as rapid prototyping via 3D printing, CNC milling, and rough model making are all fair game here. Higher fidelity prototyping is a cost-effective method of ensuring the client will not waste time and money in mass production and tooling.

Prototyping allows us to validate a product in real life. It allows us to make sure the product can be built as we visualized it in our heads and that it overall works sitting on a shelf, on someone’s head, or being held in someone’s hand.

In one particular project, Hatch Duo worked with Rizse. Rizse is a fully autonomous drone system designed to streamline the future of aircraft inspection. With Rizse, we worked on a very differentiated industrial design, precise product engineering, DFA/DFM and initial flight prototype. Rizse employs lidar technology and a high-precision camera that allows data to be collected efficiently and consistently. We helped Rizse hint at this by implementing a clear underbelly and wave pattern to connotate “sensing.” We went through countless iterations to reduce the weight of the drone. Ultimately, our design helped propel Rizse to a position where they could easily receive more funding and garner relationships with major commercial airlines- a $209 Billion industry.

Left to right: The Rizse dome when we got it vs. where Hatch Duo took the prototype with design and engineering development.?

The Test: the last step in our design-thinking process. For testing, we use all resources while being thoughtful of the parameters of the product. We tested products internally and we also make sure we get feedback from potential consumers and users. This step allows us to get real feedback from consumers. Testing is a crucial element to determine what user issues may arrive, before making final decisions regarding whether or not to proceed.

Recently, we helped Firmtech develop the FirmTech Tech Ring, which provides a full sensor feature set allowing monitoring of data to optimize your sexual health. The FTR unique latch-and-loop design makes it easy to get on and off around sensitive anatomy. The mission of FirmTech is to "change the conversation away from 'erectile dysfunction' to 'erectile fitness.'" Normalizing the phrase eliminates shame and empowers men to maintain their sexual fitness--especially as they age.

We understand there are roadblocks in navigating the Sextech industry due to the stigmatized nature of sexual health conversations. However, as designers, we aim to solve problems in areas that may be overlooked. The testing stage for this project was critical. Hatch Duo had test couples use the product. Their recorded experiences were crucial in informing the tweaks of our design.

FirmTech’s proprietary elastomer ring fits comfortably and adjusts easily for stronger performance and enhanced pleasure.?

For hardware startups, design thinking is essential because there is little room for error. At Hatch Duo, we utilize this design thinking framework and value collaboration with our clients along the way. We work with clients to understand their goals and ask questions that help us better understand the product. We then use empathy and experience to design and build a prototype that can have commercial success. We use information from our testing phase to direct us to a better design by showing us what potential user issues may arise. We also research industry trends to ensure that our ideas align with what other companies are doing. This process has enabled Hatch Duo to provide clients with consistent and innovative results.?

Hardware can be very unpredictable. A simple tooling mistake can be very costly as well as any other mistake at the manufacturing level. Our five-step process is a guardrail for that. With it, we can get a product from A to Z, instead of winging it and being reactionary. Our method helps us build elegant products that are competitively priced for the mass market. Time and time again, this 5-step design thinking process provides a framework for businesses that is proven to work.

Have you considered design thinking principles for your startup? Do you have the necessary resources? If you are interested in applying design thinking to your business and increasing its profitability, contact us at [email protected].