We all designers at some point had a conversation which goes like this-
"We need packaging which will delight consumers and stand out on the shelf"
-"What is the USP of your product?"
"It has all wow factors and the packaging should convey that."
- "Can you explain to us what should packaging convey?"
"It should excite consumers to purchase the product."
Sometimes even after a lot of intervention, designers end up getting subjective answers, early on in the process. It is much later in the discussion we start getting answers about order quantity, filling process, technical specifications, price, etc. With a lot of subjective answers, it becomes difficult to build a brief and kick start project.
It is very essential for designers to bridge the gap between consumer and client expectations. How do we define 'Delight' on behalf of consumers?
Let us assume that there is no brief given by the client. Here, we get an opportunity to focus on consumer emotions regarding the product. Peeping into the consumer mind can be tricky and there is a risk that you may instantly start rushing towards the solution.
In this post, I want to demonstrate a process to reverse track from a consumer perspective and get a defined design brief. Another common thing to do is to keep your thoughts aligned with the client marking the two or three key areas you will be working on to improve the consumer experience while kick-starting the project.
Converting intangible attributes into objective goals
Generally, when I analyze a brief, I segregate it into four categories Pleasurable(consumer experience), Manufacturability, Usability & Functionality.
Let's take an example of Ice cream packaging. For ease of explanation, I will define my target group as Millenials. We will explore more on the intangible category in this exercise. It is a very simple and fun exercise to convert subjective to objective/ direction oriented brief.
Defining 'delight' for customers
In this exercise, we will take four categories to build a user persona and define attributes. We will then populate each one of them. Categories can be more than four, depending on the complexity of the topic
After populating categories we will club common scenarios or topics and then define direction. You may get 2 or more directions.
With the above mapping, we got three defined directions with experience which we can use to kick start the project. Later on, we can also bring all three directions under one umbrella to achieve better connections with the different user groups.
Why this exercise?
It gives more avenues to explore & designer can work on multiple directions
Can align on specific directions with the client at the beginning of the project
Gives the client more light on how the consumer mindsight works
Help you redefine brief in an objective & rich
Thanks for reading.
How do you approach such scenarios?
Drop me a line at amitajain16@gmail.com
-Amita
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