Prototyping and Further Research

Making things real

In the ideation process, we took the decision to tackle the insight that people buy single-use plastic bags in supermarkets because they forget to bring their reusable bags. Therefore, we wanted to come up with a pocket solution for a foldable, reusable bag that ensures that people don’t forget their bags anymore when they go shopping.

This solution was still very broad as we had not yet defined where the pocket should be, if it should be permanently fixed or movable or what material it should be made of.

Hence, we split tasks, gained consumer insights about which items people always take when they leave the house, did research on sustainable materials, application methods of movable pockets, existing folding bags and sizes and worked on first drafts of possible solutions.

Especially the size of the reusable bag and how small it could be folded together was an issue of concern. We even saw it as a deal-breaker if the bag couldn’t be folded to a very small size, because our intention was to provide a convenient solution for the users.

We organised thin, but durable nylon material for folding tests and I cut out a stencil made of newspaper material to imitate the folding process. We considered to sew a physical prototype bag, but then I found a foldable bag in a similar size and we decided to take this one as our prototype.

Bag and phone case prototype (Hinger, 2019)

When the customer insights revealed that the phone is the item most Millennials take with them when leaving the house, we decided to develop a phone case with a pocket for the bag. The prototype helped us to imagine what the product could look like, thereby giving a better sense if the solution would be desirable, feasible and viable (Brown, 2009). Our conclusion was:

• Desirability In order to make to product desirable we would have to promote a life-style around our brand, which makes the thicker phone case design to have space for the bag a statement to belong to the movement.

• Feasibility Our solution seems feasible as the prototype has shown that the bag can be folded to a size of a phone. A sophisticated physical prototype would be necessary as the next step, also to conduct a user testing.

• Viability A detailed calculation of the materials and development of the business model with supplier and sales network would be required with the sophisticated physical prototype.

The prototyping was a very valuable step to get closer to a realistic outcome and I am glad, we worked on the realisation fast after the idea cam up. Nevertheless, the prototyping alone was not enough, we needed the deeper research around the use of our solution with the target group as well as the secondary research about materials and feasibility.

Reference List:

Brown, T. (2009) Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.