What Lies Ahead: Designing the products of the future
Recently, I’ve found myself marveling at how very traditional products such as kitchen appliances and vehicles increasingly offer an experience that integrates them more deeply into our modern lifestyles.
What’s enabling this is The Internet of Things (IoT), and we are just scratching the surface of its potential for product innovation.
Soon, the IoT capabilities will transform the way we think about consumer products and what they offer us, and dramatically change those products into something completely new—not really even products anymore, but business and lifestyle solutions.
For designers, the IoT is creating a new playground in which to imagine and create. Product development is no longer just about physical attributes or functions. It’s also now about the digital experience, which becomes a key part of a brand’s entire customer experience.
As the physical and digital unite, combined with rapid advances in digital design tools like 3D printing, generative design and augmented reality, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a designer.
As the design, engineering and manufacturing worlds come together in the UK later this month at DEVELOP3D LIVE 2016, I will be taking the stage to talk more about these exciting trends in product design enabled by the IoT, and the changing way you need to design consumer solutions in today’s digital world.
I hope you can join me at the main stage on March 31, or follow along via the free delayed video feed for those in the United States.
In the meantime, I predict more about what lies ahead for designers and engineers in this month’s issue of Develop3D.
LinkedIn: Simon Floyd
Twitter: @FloydInnovation
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