Design

Aesthetics
	The aesthetics of a product or technology can influence its success in different ways. In the automobile industry, the way a car looks is very important to a customer, in fact people often pay as much attention to the aesthetics of a car as to its performance. A classic example of this is the Skoda. This manufacturer traditionally had a very bad reputation for performance and bad aesthetics, but in the last few years have completely redesigned their range of cars. At the same time, they launched a very popular advertising campaign which didn’t settle for simply promoting the new design, but enhanced its appeal by making fun of the old designs, and people’s perceptions of them.
	In some cases however, aesthetics are more or less important depending on the particular group targeted. Computer operating systems such as Windows dominate the consumer market as they are aesthetically pleasing and easy to use for even the most inexperienced computer user, as the operating system does everything for you. However, operating systems such as Linux are used a great deal by programmers and computer enthusiasts, as the user has a lot more control over how the operating system works. Also there is the matter of reputation, and Microsoft have a bad one in the computer industry due to frequent attempts to try and monopolise the market.

Wrong consumer group
	Some products may designed perfectly, but they are not necessarily designed for the right consumer. Take the Nintendo 64, for example. When it was released in mid 1996, the Sony Playstation had already been on the market for six months. The N64 was the first 64-bit games console to be released, and consumers had high expectations. But all the game titles that were released for the N64 were designed for the 10+ market, as Nintendo have always had a reputation as a family-oriented company, and this was the traditional market for console machines. This was a mistake, as Sony was beginning to capture a new market of consumers that had previously not been associated with consoles. Due to the Playstation offering more adult-oriented games such as Resident Evil, twenty-somethings were attracted to the more mature themes that Super Mario didn’t have to offer. Subsequently, the N64 was a flop, and with the release of the Playstation2 in 2001, Nintendo had to rethink their strategy.

Lack of testing
	As seen in the Tyrrell P34 example, lack of pre-production testing was a serious issue in the automobile industry before computer aided design (CAD) programs started to become available around the start of the 1980s. If Tyrrell had had access to such equipment, they would have been able to model the P34’s performance, and thus recognise before a great deal of money had been put in to the project that the car would not have had any speed advantage.

Design not in the consumer’s interests
	As seen in the Sinclair C5 example, firms may be tempted to produce items that make life easier for themselves, or to try to exploit some sort of loophole, rather than to design a product to suit the consumer’s needs. The design of the C5 was tailored to take advantage of the government’s incentives for making more environmentally friendly vehicles, and so ended up as something consumers basically didn’t want to use.

Lack of technology
	Again, in the C5 example, the lack of battery technology was the main stumbling block for all forms of electric transport. Yet Sinclair chose not to invest in improving battery technology, and so ended up with a product that was let down by that very same lack of technology. Their view was that the existing battery manufacturers should be the ones to come up with the technology, thus relying on firms who had no interest in whether the C5 succeeded or not. When released, the main consumer complaint with the C5 was that the battery life was not long enough, and this made it inconvenient and unusable for most consumers, thus making the C5 a failure.

Bullet Point Analysis

·	Bad design can lead to bad reputation
·	Bad market research can lead to products being designed for the wrong market area.
·	Companies need to consider competition when designing products. If their product is too similar to the competitor’s, people will stick with what they know. If it is too different, it may risk being out of the market it was aimed for.
·	Political incentives (such as tax?) may cause a company to make a misguided design decision, leading to bad design or ones which do not fit the intended market.
·	If the design attempts to use technology that is too new (untested) or too old (out of date) it may fail.
·	New technologies designed to compete with existing products must be noticeably better than these products, not just as good or a little better.
·	A simple product may do better than an over-complex product, depending on the end consumer.