Innovation in Product Design Can Change the World
Innovative product design has the power to skyrocket businesses to eternal greatness. One outside-the-box, game-changing design alters the thinking of an entire industry and, in some instances, the whole world.
Naturally, innovation and product design go hand-in-hand. Every designer aims to be innovative—they have to be in order to solve problems for their desired target audience.
In this article, we’re going to go through our top 6 innovative product design examples, explaining why we chose them and how they changed an industry.
Let’s get to it.
6 Innovative Product Design Examples
1. The iPhone
In January 2007, Steve Jobs announced the first Apple iPhone—a combination of the highly appreciated iPod touch and a revolutionary phone and internet-enabled device. The jaws of the world dropped.
People didn’t know they needed this advancement, but it sure changed the world.
As the world-first touch screen phone, iPhone debuted a powerful processor and a wide range of apps—something no other phone had done before.
Apple’s innovative product design was the birth of the smartphone era. An era we still live in today.
2. The Tesla Model S
Governments and climate change experts have encouraged society to switch to electric vehicles for a while now. However, adoption was challenging for a number of reasons, particularly price and performance.
The first electric cars were small and basic, offering minimal performance at an extortionate cost.
Then the Tesla Model S came along. Instantly, this product design innovation changed the way people think about electric cars. This car offers in-car technology like we’ve never seen before and competes with the performance levels of traditional gasoline vehicles.
Due to the incredible advancements made with the Tesla Model S, electric cars are now more popular and mainstream, and Tesla revenue continues to grow. Essentially, they’ve paved the way for the future of transportation.
3. The Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle gives readers the ability to bring thousands of books and put them on small portable devices, enabling them to carry their entire library with them wherever they go.
A perfect example of innovative product design—Amazon solved a problem that readers of all ages forever wanted to overcome.
This development revolutionized the book publishing industry. Firstly, books became cheaper as production costs came down, people began to buy more books, authors and aspiring authors could self-publish books, and reading, in general, became more convenient.
4. The Apple Watch
The Apple Watch inspired a new era of wearable technology. Bringing the functions of multiple technologies into one, the Apple Watch gave wearers the ability to track their fitness, stay connected, and control other devices. It took simple wearable tech and skyrocketed its capabilities.
We’re going to give a notable mention of the Fitbit in this section. They started the wearable fitness tracker revolution, but Apple took it to the next level with the Apple Watch. So, in theory, Fitbit’s innovative product design changed an industry too.
5. The Roomba
Some people think vacuuming the house is an inconvenience. In fact, in a world where everyone’s always busy, chores eat into time we’d rather be doing something else.
The Roomba was our savior. This robotic vacuum cleaner made us rethink the way we clean our homes—we don’t. Now, this self-cleaning device navigates its way around floor spaces, cleaning without human assistance.
6. The Nest Thermostat
Nest is a smart thermostat that changed how we control the temperature of our homes. Instead of setting timers at home or simply turning the heat on and off when we needed it, Nest empowered people to take control of their heating systems from their smartphones.
Adding another level to the innovative product design, Nest included a learning mechanism that automatically adjusts the temperature based on our preferences and habits.
Furthermore, it’s become a fantastic tool for helping people save money on their energy bills while reducing their carbon footprint.
Conclusion
One product can completely change the thinking of an entire industry. For innovative product design to come to life, designers need to carefully consider the challenges consumers face, analyze existing products on the market, and come up with solutions that allow users to easily achieve their goals.
It sounds easy, but it’s not. Above are just a few examples of products that have changed industries, but there are many more examples of products that have been average or failed. Follow these product design best practices, and use the products above as inspiration for your own work, and you might be next to unearth an industry-changing product.
Want to kickstart an innovative product design project? Get in touch today.