The process by which we, ShopYourFit, went from product/market fit to revenue is very interesting because it includes a mix of more product/market fit, more experimentation, and more products we’re building. We find out even different problems that customers have.
That’s how we got into revenue. When we built ShopYourFit, we quickly understood that we were going to have different customers coming to the website. They’re going to a personalization process that we created using artificial intelligence, and using later, TensorFlow and augmented reality.
I explained how the personalization process works. Customers visit the website and manually input their height and weight. Then, they choose their style. It’s very subjective the way that customers dress. It’s not necessarily about the large, medium, or small sizes that matter. Customers may want clothing that is tighter or clothing that is looser.
Different styles are more subjective, so what we did is build a simple board where the customer selects certain pictures. Using the selections, we can gain an understanding of a customer’s behavior and how the customer wants to wear certain styles of clothing.
We ask customers to take pictures of the front and side, so we can construct a precise body type. We have the body type, we have the style, and we have the customer’s height and weight. Using all the information provided by the customer, we can populate a website for customers that is customized to what they’re looking for.

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is not just for designing buildings but for anything that needs to be assembled. It turns a lot of handwritten hard work into easy workable designs on a computer. Creating two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures and changing them very easily has changed architecture and product design tremendously.

There’s no doubt that computers have helped the world do many things faster and more efficiently than traditional methods. Before computers, architects and product designers were limited because they had to hand draw their designs and use rulers to ensure their measurements were correct. And if they had made a mistake or dimensions had to change, they had to erase and start over. With CAD, you can make changes quickly to a product design without losing the other work you’ve done.

The computer allows you to make changes in product development very easily. Complex and challenging product designs can be created with ease by using CAD. You can also create multiple copies of the same design with some tweaks added. To do this, you simply copy and alter it and repeat that process as many times as you’d like. Find the perfect proportions or see where your dimensions need to change some to make it more comfortable to use in different situations. Then you have multiple versions of the same product and can see which one works the best for you and your clients.

After the design is on the computer, you can do many things with it. For example, you can start with two-dimensional drawings and then move on to three-dimensional drawings. You can see what the faces look like in two-dimensional drawings and then look at them from multiple viewpoints with the three-dimensional drawings. This process uses orthogonal drawings.

Orthogonal drawings allow you to see a top view, side views, front views, and sometimes you even can see the bottom or back views, depending on what you need. You can usually describe the object in perfect detail with a front view, top view, and side views. Product design education can help you learn these techniques to add more value to your efforts in creating products.

After using these multiple viewpoints, you can produce documents called technical specifications. These documents are sent out to the vendors so they can replicate them into real materials. The vendors use their knowledge to make your materials with their processes and the specific use of the materials. Usually, whatever your product calls for, the vendors have their methods of making it a reality for you to do your job. Once you have your materials from the vendor, you can piece together a prototype to present to your client.

There are other orthogonal views telling us the product’s size, what the dimensions are, and what the material is going to be like and how the product will be assembled together. Technical specifications are simply one tool that CAD offers you to make professional and accurate product designs.

Let’s talk a bit about the history and background of user experience design, or UX. Concern about UX started quite early in history, even back thousands of years. Let’s place ourselves in 4,000 B.C. in China talking about Feng Shui.

Feng Shui is a philosophy that explores the relationship between the elements, the energy known as chi, and how that circulates through space. Feng means wind, while Shui means water.

In Feng Shui, it’s all about how we position elements in the space, like how an interior designer would place furniture or decorations in a room.

The flow and the journey of the user as the person that inhabits that space is efficient when you follow the principles of Feng Shui. Using the space is pleasant and enjoyable. This is a wonderful first milestone that always fascinates me about UX principles. This history shows that UX has been always with us.

Let’s continue on this exciting journey through history. In the year 500 B.C., the ancient Greeks started playing around with this concept of UX. The way they did it was by designing their own tools and workplaces.

They followed principles of ergonomics, or what we know as ergonomics, in order to develop and design their tools and workplaces. They followed those principles to maximize efficiency and to promote well-being in the humans that were working in those professions or using those tools.

That was basically the beginning of the relationship between the human being and those elements.

We know all this because there’s a text from Hippocrates that describes how a surgeon should be working and how to set up what we know today as a surgery or surgeon theater. The text talks about things like how the tools should be displayed, where the light should be coming from, and if the surgeon is sitting or standing.

All the information in Hippocrates’ text talks about how to create an efficient experience, not just for the surgeon, but also for the patient.

Today, as we’ve moved to using digital products, user interface, or UI, has become a new part of design history. UI design and online UX design education have to be concerned with how a user interfaces with something digital in the same way that Hippocrates was concerned with how a surgeon could best use surgical tools.

Isn’t it fascinating?

Industrial design is one of the broadest professions there is because we design anything, from small housewares, to transportation, to exhibits. I designed this product development course to mirror the design process. It starts with an exploration of the field and what kind of opportunities there are.

The next step is where you start sketching. We’re going to sketch out more what the industrial design profession does. And we’re going to show you how designers sketch in different media.

Industrial design is basically designing things, which humans have been doing ever since they got out of the cave. We pulled up a rock, and that was our first design.

The industrial design profession really started in the 1920s when we were called upon by the industry to design things for their machines so they could mass produce. That required us to create this new profession that was focused on manufacturing techniques and also about how to satisfy customers.

What’s great about industrial design is it’s really focused on user needs. What has happened over those last years is our tiny profession has become the dominant method of business nowadays. Everybody’s doing design thinking. They’re all focused on the user’s needs. And all the things that industrial designers invented now are the normal things that everyone uses.

The difference with what real industrial designers bring to the party, besides all that good stuff, is that we actually make real things.

The design process includes sketching up ideas. But by sketching, we mean actually sketching three dimensionally to make a mock up or something. So, the design process goes from trying to understand things, exploring what’s around, brainstorming ideas about how to solve the issues, or what opportunities we can find, taking those ideas, and refining them and trying to figure out how to make them into a real product.

Finally, we have to work with the factories and engineers to actually make the things. So, we get down to the nitty gritty of choosing which materials to use and what manufacturing processes are going to be used.

Then we even try and sell the product because we’ve been through the whole process. This product is our baby. We know where it’s good. We know when it’s bad. We know how to make people want that baby.

Basically, that’s the industrial design in a nutshell. In this module of product design, we call it “explore” because that’s the first phase of an industrial design project. What you do when you start exploring is you don’t know where you’re going. You have to start off with a blank slate.

We’re going to look at different ways you fill up that slate with information you didn’t know when you started out. But, at the end of this phase you’re going to have a good idea of what the project is about.

This is what a product design education course can offer you.

What impacts one impacts us all when it comes to product design. Or as Martin Luther King said, “What affects one affects all of us.” Consciously or not, we’re often considering our shared experiences and evaluating the designer of product development. We think about who is on the design team and who is authoring these products that are making their way to market. Sometimes, we realize that essential products like medical devices, educational tools, technological programs, and the cars that we drive are not crafted by a team that is as diverse as it should be.

Let’s take America, for instance. Our nation is a very diverse country. It is referred to as “a melting pot” or “a salad.” A more contemporary term might be “a hot pot.” We have people coming to this country from different cultures, different races, different ethnicities, different nationalities, different religions, and different genders. Instead of insisting on a generic, one-size-fits-all product design, we should celebrate our differences and incorporate them into our design work.

When we think about how a product that is used by people from such diverse backgrounds we ask “how can it possibly be perfect for every individual? How can one product be satisfactory to someone who is very tall, someone who’s very short, to someone who is sighted, or someone who was born deaf?” To a person with neurological challenges, a common product design might be perceived very differently than by someone who’s considered to be highly functional in a conventional sense.

These variations and the way people live as well as their individual experiences suggest that product design education is truly intersectional and is influenced by many factors. A designer can make design decisions in a studio in the Midwest or in Philadelphia where I live, but they don’t know anything about those who live in South Texas and grew up on a ranch. How do they have meaningful conversations about a product? They don’t. We make a lot of assumptions about public perception of our goods and services.

With ethnographic research, we asked a few people some questions and gathered enough insights to enlighten our understanding. With relevant feedback, I can go and work on my idea. And what happens is that there’s a disconnect between the products that are made and the people who they serve. We end up with products that don’t work as well as they should. Building inclusivity into our design approach is the first step toward meeting diverse consumer needs. Online product design education can become the next step for those who want to enter this challenging but rewarding field.

“I’m always encouraging my students to aim for 100 ideas,” says Jamer Hunt. “You may think that there are only two or three good ideas for one single opportunity, but I say try for 100.”

When you start generating ideas, you often reach a point of frustration where you think there’s nothing else to think about. When you reach this point, you have to just keep moving forward.

“Just keep sketching,” encourages Jamer. “You have to keep iterating your ideas because eventually, you’ll reach ideas you didn’t know you had.”

Product Design

This is when things start getting exciting. This is when design really takes off. I like to refer to this as the unknown unknowns. These are the things that we don’t know we don’t know. This is the real magic of design. Most design falls under the unknown unknowns. For example, how can we take this vacuum cleaner and improve it by 3%? How do we take this experience on an airline and improve it by 3%?

Product Design Education

The unknown unknowns are those breakthrough ideas that really transform a way of designing into a way of creating new products. However, you don’t get there on your first, second, or third ideas. You have to push through to your 20th, your 30th, your 40th, and your 100th ideas. This is when you really put stress on your own sense of what you know. This is where you push yourself beyond your comfort zone into an area where the things in your head come forward. These are the things you aren’t prepared for and the things you don’t anticipate.

This is when the magic starts to happen.

“I think 3D modeling is a great tool,” says product development expert Nifemi Ogunro. “It’s great for when you’re trying to communicate an idea. It’s great when you’re trying to get precision.” This is because you can see exactly what 2 inches is going to look like or what a dowel is going to look like through a full form.

In school, you are taught to learn the inner components of 3D modeling programs. This is applicable if you are going into engineering or doing more electronics-related work. Nifemi Ogunro likes to tell people not to worry so much about not understanding specific programs and their nuances.

This is because when you are working, whether for yourself or with a company, your employer will potentially give you the option of what programs to use. You may also get to choose for yourself. Nifemi Ogunro found that she personally liked SolidWorks the most out of all the programs that she learned. “It’s very expensive,” she explains.

Right now, Nifemi Ogunro uses Fusion 360, which is a free alternative, perfect for online product design education. “There’s so much overlap with the programs,” she shares. But features such as simple extrusions or being able to learn how to cut different holes to show different parts are ones she thinks are really valuable for product design.

Let’s say you’re on Zoom. How many of you have heard the phrase, “Oh, you’re muted. Could you repeat yourself, please?” The mute button is a great example of a product design opportunity. It’s something that we are all really familiar with, but fundamentally it’s poorly designed because it’s not intuitive to how we want it to work. That is a design opportunity. Again, it could start in everyday frustration. It could start because something is not working the way it should be. And really, if you can’t figure it out, that’s a design flaw. The person has not designed it to be easy to use and easy to figure out. There’s a better way to do it if you can’t figure it out.

So, what are ways that you can try and tackle this problem-solving process in product development? First, it’s really about identifying what the problem is. How you frame that problem is really important. Are you asking the right question? Coming back to the example of the mute button, is it, “Am I asking how do I make this mute button easier to turn on and off, or am I really asking how do I make the mute button work for me? How do I make the mute button intuitive? And how do I make the mute button work in a way that makes sense for most people?” Or is it also about making a solution that’s not about a mute button at all, but just about filtering out sound and being able to bubble up the important parts of speech and lower and suppress the parts of speech that are not as important? For example, filtering out white noise but raising voices when you really want to be heard.

The first part really to tackling a problem is framing the problem and figuring out what is the question you’re really trying to answer. You might think you’re asking one question but as you go forward in the design process, and you research, and you develop ideas, you actually come back to the question, and the question isn’t quite right. Let me rephrase this. Let me adjust this and rejigger it to a way that makes more sense and actually gets at the heart of what I really care about. That’s the first part: just framing the question. It sounds easy, but it’s actually really hard.

We often ask questions in the phrase of “how might we?” How might we design a better mute button? Or, how might we come up with a sound system that’s more intuitive? How might we filter out background noise? How might we ensure that voices are heard? There’s a whole different way, and each one is focused on the same problem but with slightly different perspectives. That’s framing the problem.

These are the kinds of questions tackled in our product design education courses.

Emily Rothschild says, “When you start out in product design and product development, it’s really important to understand who your audience is and who your user is.” Where is this design, this project that you’re working on going to resonate most? You will need to think about where it’s going to land, where it’s going to live, who’s going to understand it, and most importantly, who’s going to use it.

Do a thorough analysis into the types of users that you’re working with. That can be creating personas. It has to involve talking to people, it has to involve putting ideas forward to get feedback and responses, it will involve testing when you come down a little bit farther down the road with the initial ideas. You’ll begin to build prototypes, even quick and dirty, sketch models. This means putting together something to express an idea that somebody can take and hold and react to. Through that process, you will better understand whether your ideas and your hunches are beginning to land and work and resonate with the people who need this or want this new design.

“Industrial designers think of the audience as actually the user,” says Tucker Viemesiter. “But the real audience for a product includes the guy who has to make it in the factory, the person who sells it to the customer, or the customer who buys it.” The customer who buys it is not necessarily the same person who uses it. For example, your mother buys a toy, but your mother is not going to use it, the baby’s going to use it. Each one of those people in the audience has something else that they’re trying to get out of this thing. You have to address all those people, and everybody has a different need. When you answer all of those things, hopefully, you have a really successful product.

Scott Henderson explains, “Back when the baby brand skip hop, was, again, just a husband and wife team, I came on as one of their first consultants. At the time they were making soft goods, diaper bags, and things like that, and leaving the industry in that area. They wanted to go ahead and make some hardgoods products, not so much designed for the baby. Because it’s really hard to design for someone from a third person point of view. And since babies are so young, it’s almost a useless exercise to try to get into their head as to what they really need. It really is about the parent.”

Henderson continues to say, “We created a strategy where we were going to create five or six hardgoods products: one in the area feeding, one in the area of in and around the sink, cleaning of bottles and things, one in the area of nursery, diaper management, and a couple of nursery products. We broke it up like,” a person’s house has a nursery, they have a kitchen, they have the refrigerator.” Once we establish these zones — kitchen, bathroom, kid’s room, nursery room — I set out to create a bunch of products that would work in these spaces.”

Our product design education course helps you design products with the user in mind.

How do you come up with the requirements for a product development project? Well, we can start with this user journey and say, “OK, how does this person use it, and what are their needs?” What are the needs of a person in this scenario, and what are the minimum requirements? What are the maximum bounds of what we want to create? At the very least, when it comes to this mute button scenario, we need it to be able to turn sound on and off essentially. That’s one way of looking at it. But, really what we want it to do is not communicate anything that shouldn’t be communicated and share what should be shared. So, what should and shouldn’t be shared across audio?

For example, you want to hear your grandma telling you a story about what it was like when she was growing up, but you don’t want to hear the toilet flushing. How do you distinguish, and how do you design a system that’s going to do that?

We’re looking at minimum performance in product design. Success would be that. Let’s say you want it to be easy to use. What does “easy to use” mean? Does “easy to use” mean it reads my thoughts? Does it mean it’s easy to push on and push off? Does it mean the button is big enough so that my visually impaired friend can use it? What does that mean for it to be “easy to use?”

On the other end, it also needs to be “not too complicated,” and that’s sort of combined with “easy to use.” This is the same way that you might develop financial metrics for success. Let’s say you want to hit a sales target of $6 million. That’s a very straightforward number. But, often metrics have more nuance to them. And similarly, you might have metrics for sales in terms of not just sales targets, but amounts like percentage yield or percentage of success, like how many attempts were successful, that kind of thing.

Likewise for a product design project, you want to think about not just making it work, but what are the nuances underneath making it work? Making it work better might be your overall department. But then within that, make it easy to use, not too complicated, and facilitate communication. Those might be a set of very simple requirements for a design project.

These requirements are what you go back to time and time again when you are testing your concepts and your prototypes. You’ll say, “OK, is this successful? How do I tell if this is successful? Does it meet my requirements? Is it within my requirements? Yes or no?”

The minimal requirements of success are some topics covered in our product design education courses.