Investigating - EduqasInvestigating existing products

Designers often start by looking at the work of other designers and existing products, and analysing the choices that have been made. They study how well a product does its job, consider how successfully the product meets these criteria and decide what could be changed to improve it. It is important that the designer is able to identify the features of a product that make it either a success or failure.

This process helps the designer in a number of ways:

• it helps to avoid copying other designers' work, which would be plagiarism
• it identifies features or aspects of existing products that could be improved, eg reducing the cost, adding extra features, making it easier or more comfortable to use, or making it look more attractive to certain groups
• it can identify technologies or ideas that could be transferred or applied to a new function or area

The research from analysing existing products can be collated and used to inform your design specification and design ideas. A design specification can also help work out the cost of manufacturing a product, including how much material is needed and what machinery is required. The percentage profit can be worked out from this and can be improved by lowering production costs, eg by using cheaper materials or fewer workers.

Example

A bookcase costs £25.00 to make in a factory and sells for £45.00 in a shop.

Profit = £45.00 - £25.00

= £20.00

= (20 ÷ 45) × 100%

= 44%

Designers use the following steps when looking at past and present designers to influence their own work. They could consider how they:

• inform - communicate their ideas clearly to the client
• refine - remove any unwanted elements to simplify the design
• modify - make minor changes and improvements to their ideas