What are the main features or attributes of the product?

Product Design

This is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. It is the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.

The process of designing a new product (or updating the features of an existing one) is usually completed by a group of people, designers or field experts in the product they are creating, or specialists for a specific component of the product. These people would essentially determine all the features and attributes of the product. The process entails focuses on figuring out what is required, brainstorming possible ideas, creating mock prototypes, and then generating the product. At this point, product designers would still need to execute the idea, making it into an actual product and then evaluating its success and seeing if any improvements are necessary.

Product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas, turning them into tangible products. Their role is to combine art, science, and technology to create features and attributes of current or new products that other people can use. Their evolving role has been facilitated by digital tools that now give them greater freedom to communicate, visualize, and analyze ideas.

The Design Process

This follows a guideline and involves three main sections: Analysis, Concept, and Synthesis - in a continuous feedback loop. Attributes and features play a role in all three sections.

Analysis: Here, the designers decide on committing to the project and finding a solution to the problem. They pool their resources into deciding how to solve the task most efficiently. Everyone in the team begins research into what the product should look like to satisfy the objective.

Concept: The key issue of the matter is defined. The conditions of the problem become objectives, and restraints on the situation become the parameters within which the new design must be constructed. The concept phase is where ideas for new features are considered.

Synthesis: The designers brainstorm different solutions for their design problem. Once they have narrowed down their ideas to a select few, they can outline their plan to make the product. Prototypes are built, the plan outlined in the previous step is realized and the product starts to become an actual object.

In the evaluation stage, the product is tested, and from there, improvements are made. Although this is the last stage, it does not mean that the process is over. The finished prototype may not work as well as hoped so new ideas may need to be brainstormed.

It is through this process of analysis, concept and synthesis that products are designed, with specific features and attributes added in order to maximize the use value and desirability of the product to the final user.

Example

Different types of products will have varying levels of sophistication when it comes to features. For example, the Swiss army knife . Various models exist, with different tool combinations for specific tasks designed for everyday use. The simplest model sold includes only a single blade, the most complicated model features many extra tools like: a smaller second blade, tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew, can opener, bottle opener, slotted/flat-head screwdriver(s), phillips-head screwdriver, nail file, scissors, saw (regular, wood), file, hook, magnifying glass, ballpoint pen, fish scaler, and so on.

'The Giant' Swiss Army Knife, by Wenger

Since 2006 Wenger has produced a knife called "The Giant" that includes every implement the company has ever made. With 87 tools and 141 different functions it is recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most multifunctional penknife. While containing an incredible amount of different features and uses, this model has lost one of the primary characteristics of the original Swiss army knife, that of portability.

Feature Creep

The evolution of the Swiss army knife may be seen as a good example of this phenomenon: the ongoing expansion and addition of new features to a product. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication rather than maintaining a simple design. Viewed over a longer time period, extra or unnecessary features seem to creep into the system, beyond the initial goals.

The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer is left with the choice of adding unneeded features, sometimes at the cost of efficiency, or sticking with the old version, at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement. While feature creep may have positive effects, it can also lead to cost overruns and product cancellations as producers lose sight of the original goal.

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