Designing “Smart” Products

Amy Rowell

The IoT (Internet of Things) has invaded the consumer market—with wearables like the Fitbit; smartphones that track our music preferences and fitness levels; and home monitoring systems that allow us to detect intruders, and control lighting and heating remotely. Clearly, the makers of such IoT-enabled products are eager to collect performance data, preference data and usage data from their connected devices in an attempt to better serve (and anticipate the needs of) their existing customers and to explore potentially new markets altogether.

But are we at risk of becoming just a bit too enamored with the potential returns to be gained from such connected, “smart” products and the IoT? To the point that we risk overlooking the obvious: the relevance of the product design itself?

Enter “Juicero,” an IoT-enabled high-tech juicer that seemed to be well-positioned to address a new market—the demand for healthy, easily produced, freshly made juice at home via a personal, at-home juicer. It features all of the potentially valuable attributes of a smart, connected consumer appliance—the ability to monitor the types of juices purchased, the frequency with which they are consumed and, as product supply dwindles, the ability to prompt the customer to reorder supplies.

The Juicero was backed by the likes of venture capitalist investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and has been touted as the “Keurig for juice.” But there is one fundamental issue with this product concept that its creators seemingly failed to recognize, as did its Silicon Valley investors. It turns out that the juice packet designed to be used in conjunction with the juice maker can be squeezed just as easily by hand as it can be by the high-priced ($400) Juicero juicer machine.

The Market, not Technology, Drives Design

How did this oversight happen? What can we learn from this product design/marketing flaw? What are the implications for IoT product design initiatives moving forward? Here, the lessons seem obvious, but are worth reiterating. Product design cannot be driven by technology—it must be enabled by technology. And market demand must serve as the driver for the product development effort—not the other way around. In the case of Juicero, which provides a service that can readily be achieved without the aid of technology, the implications are clear. Why invest in an expensive IoT appliance when a consumer can accomplish the same task at little cost—without it?

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. But what Juicero developers and their investor friends could have done to avoid this simple oversight would have been to ask a basic question: Is this product uniquely qualified to perform a particular task or to deliver a particular service? If not, why would a customer want it? Can the product (or service) provide something—not to its developers, but to the consumer—that would be difficult to obtain elsewhere, or simply cannot be easily obtained elsewhere? A simple SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis should have shed light on this with the Juicero. The question is: What prompted both the investors and the creators to overlook such basic analysis early on?

The answer provides another valuable lesson to be learned. In the development phase of any product, IoT-enabled or otherwise, one must not overlook basic design principles. A new product must be able to compete in the marketplace, not simply by virtue of its technology but by the function it serves, and most importantly by the market need it is able to address. Losing sight of this fundamental concept can spell failure for any product. Here, perhaps the mantra should be that “smart design” trumps the notion of any “smart product.” Unfortunately, in the midst of the IoT craze, much like the VC investment environment that characterized the dotcom era, investors and product developers are often blinded by the promise of a new technology.

The bottom line? Simply because a product is IoT-enabled doesn’t mean it’s destined to be a winner. In fact, without a well-planned IoT strategy, even a well-designed IoT-enabled device that successfully meets the market need test will be subject to failure in the marketplace if it fails to deliver on its promise of “connectedness,” reliably. But that’s a topic for another discussion—the software development challenges associated with IoT-enabled products.

Amy Rowell (linkedin.com/in/aarowell) is an industry analyst with a passion for researching topics related to innovation in next-gen product design and manufacturing and all the tools that are making it possible. Contact her via [email protected].