A Fortune 500 company wanted to develop a prototype of a new category of consumer electronics device. But first they needed to make sure that the device would address a real market opportunity and user need.

The company approached Artefact with a high-level idea for a new product concept. The company was targeting a date by which they would try to convince executive management to "green light" this potential new product based on a compelling idea. At the start of the project, there was very little information about who the customers were, what their needs were, and how to best implement the product idea to meet those needs. All that existed was a cool vision statement. The timeline ruled out doing immersive user research or significant market research. Nonetheless, we were asked to provide some understanding of the market size and the core value proposition for the device.

We used a very agile process to cover multiple bases: quantifying the market opportunity using existing and syndicated research, and qualifying the user perspective through a series of interviews. Over the course of several weeks, we devised a new interaction system and developed a vision video with high production values that showed a user interacting with the device throughout its life.

Timeline: 3 months with two designers and two researchers (one market researcher and one user researcher)

Discover Identify design goals, opportunities and requirements
Unlike many projects that begin with a user need and end in a product, this project began with a device for which we needed to identify a compelling business proposition.

We started by identifying a set of user activities that suggested a potential opportunity for the device. Some categories of activities were as broad as "Shopping" or "Printing" and represented groupings of questions and hypotheses we wanted to address. For example, what are the different triggers of shopping behaviors? What types of inputs are necessary to reach a purchase decision? How do social behaviors play into the shopping experience? In what ways do they stimulate a shopping behavior, or are they more important in reaching a decision?

Next, we delivered a product strategy and plan that included an analysis of the market opportunity, based in part on a significant number of syndicated and primary research reports compiled by our client. For specific user activities for which existing data did not provide much clarity, we conducted rapid ethnography: we recruited participants according to customer profiles, and asked them to share artifacts they create when engaging in relevant activity areas. Identifying their desires and behavior in addition to market opportunity is a powerful way to paint a complete picture of what is happening in the market, why people do what they do, and why they feel the way they feel. We also delivered competitive research by analyzing similar products and non-technology solutions (e.g., books and maps) to the same problems. We described user segments in terms of characteristics and market size, and articulated a value proposition for the device for each of these segments.

The results of this quick (4-week) but intense effort were: 1) a product strategy and plan based on market trends and opportunities; 2) competitive research of existing products and solutions; and 3) design opportunities and requirements based on the desires and needs of the target audience. As one of our designers later put it, "Coming into the project with all this understanding of the business opportunities and customer needs allowed me to hit the ground running and feel confident that my work was addressing the right issues."

Envision Generate and validate design solutions
We converted our phase-one results into a set of prioritized concept sketches that tied the best design opportunities together in a cohesive story. We collaborated closely with our client to develop a storyline for the user characters and translate scenarios into a storyboard. We also worked closely with our client's industrial design team to ensure that the hardware and software designs would work hand in hand. Finally, we built a wireframe prototype that showed the most promising end-to-end scenarios in action.

Realize Generate the final design
While this project did not call for a full-fledged visual language, we needed to figure out how to flesh out the concepts visually so that they would deliver on the promise of the product. Our designers developed a set of visual language elements, such as backgrounds, transitions, and animations that accentuated the dynamic nature of the interaction and supported natural input and interaction methods, such as touch.

Four of our most exciting scenarios came alive in click-through prototypes that reflected our recommended interaction design. The accompanying video vignettes showed interesting new gestures that took advantage of the device's built-in accelerometer. Our design of the software took advantage of the hardware's capabilities and consequently influenced form factor decisions. The final videos we delivered told the story of the user characters and demonstrated their newly acquired ability to do the really cool things they cared about.

Outcome
The final deliverable was used in presentation to secure funding for the product concept.