Learn the Not-So-Basics
Advice for product innovation, design ,and development
How Does ‘Hick’s Law’ Apply to Product Design?
Regardless of what you're designing, the options you present to users should be simple and straightforward.
Read more
Applying the Pareto Principle to Product Development
The Pareto Principle is a great tool for project teams when they’re trying to decide where to focus their energy and efforts.
Read more
Designing Consumer Robotics? Answer These Four Questions First
Convincing discerning consumers to buy a home robot isn't easy. To earn a spot in our homes and our lives, “home bots” (and those designing them) must answer four important questions.
Read more
How Design for Misuse Creates Safer Products
Design for misuse is less about modifying users' behavior and more about allowing a tool to continue to be functional, given the likelihood of certain behavior.
Read more
A Guide to Developing Better Product Requirements
Creating product requirements can seem like a straightforward task, but it has plenty of potential pitfalls.
Read more
Design or Buy? 6 Tests to Tell If You Should Buy or Design That Component
More often than not, designing your cool new product relies on some new widget. You’re not sure if you should design your own or buy one from a supplier. What if there was a straightforward way to decide?
Read more
How Root Cause Probing Improves Medical Device Design
Often, users don’t know why they made a mistake, so the art of Root Cause Probing is digging deeper to uncover what went wrong. To do this, human factors researchers have some tried-and-true methods.
Read more
How to Use High-Fidelity Prototyping for Soft Goods
You’ve vetted your MVP design through low and medium-fidelity prototypes. Now use high-fidelity prototypes to amplify your MVP into a truly compelling offering.
Read more
How Affordance Makes Medical Devices Safer
Have you ever tried to pull open a door, only to look down and see a sign that says “push”?
Read more
How to Use Low- and Mid-Fidelity Prototyping for Soft Goods
It’s important to prototype and test soft materials at various stages in the product development process.
Read more
When to Use Soft Goods in Product Design
To develop the best version of your product, have you considered leveraging softer materials?
Read more
Concept FMEA for Engineering During the Fuzzy Front-End of Development
The “fuzzy front end” of product development can pose some unique challenges for engineers.
Read more
Design That Clicks: The Art and Science of Tactile Feedback
A click is a universally recognized cue that an action is complete. Seeing is believing, but feeling is knowing. Here's how to get the right sound and feel.
Read more
3 Product Design Best Practices to Follow
How to create a successful product – whether you're designing a product that's physical, digital, or somewhere in between.
Read more
Four Steps To the “Right” Color in Product Design
We developed a color selection methodology that applies user-first design thinking to finding the right color in product design.
Read more
How to design for positive, humanity-scale impact
A simple open-sourced design had a massive social impact—40 million face shields were produced for front-line workers fast and without expensive tooling investments.
Read more
The Role of Human Factors in Product Design
A primer on what, how and when the discipline of human factors is used in the design and development of products.
Read more
Five tips for moderating remote usability studies
We've been doing remote research since before COVID-19, but the pandemic gave given us a great opportunity to hone our craft.
Read more
Countdown to MDR: Are You Ready for the New EU Medical Device Regulation?
How does the new EU Medical Device Regulation relate to human factors and usability? It depends if your medical product is existing or new.
Read more
How Anthropomorphic Form Shapes Product Design
Humans are drawn to anthropomorphic form in product design. Here's how industrial and interaction designers can use this as a tool.
Read more
7 tips for creating compelling presentations
At Delve, we think of the full Product Development Process. That means we support our clients not just through Strategy, Design and Engineering, but also the ‘intangibles’ along the way.
Read more
How to Use Mapping to Determine the Design of Your Controls
Good mapping makes products easier and more intuitive to use. Done well, it can create a powerful connection between a product and its users.
Read more
Reducing Medical Device Risk with Usability Testing: The Why, the How, and the Who
Medical devices are commonly recalled due to usability issues that can be prevented with proper usability testing during the development lifecycle.
Read more
What Does 'Hierarchy of Needs' Mean To Product Designers?
How can product designers apply Maslow's theory of human motivation to their work? A design won't succeed if it doesn't meet users' most basic needs.
Read more
What’s a ‘Nudge’ in Product Design?
Nudge is a concept rooted in behavioral science that describes how minor changes in product design can markedly affect individual behavior.
Read more
Engineering in the fun
Engineering in the fun takes a willingness to say "yes" to a user-centered vision and mastering the mechanics.
Read more
I say “Dome of Awesome” and you say…
When I’ve said “dome of awesome” to people, they generally respond with something like, “What is it? I want it. I want to be in the dome of awesome!”
Read more
User-centered design is on the menu
What does it take to run a restaurant?
Read more
Were the Wright Brothers wrong?
Many of our clients, from startups to multi-national medical device manufacturers, pursue patents on the products and services we help them design.
Read more
Understanding and using emerging aesthetic design trends
While there are many different types of trends you can and should reference throughout the new product design and development process including macro, consumer and industry, aesthetic design trends may be some of the harder nuts to crack.
Read more
Your brand deserves a language
How do we know the difference between a designer handbag and a knockoff?
Read more
The Viability Crevasse
Have you noticed how many crowdsourcing hits fail to bridge the chasm between viral video and sellable product?
Read more
Models and Prototypes 101
Product design is an iterative process. Models are a critical part of that process.
Read more
The role of virtual prototyping in product development
When you have to make a bunch of something or something where failure isn’t an option (a parachute, for instance), you better make sure that you’re making the right thing and that you’re sure it will work.
Read more
Tips for making tough design decisions
No matter what your title is, a significant part of your job is making decisions and justifying them to others.
Read more
The role of user experience in product design
User Experience (UX) design in its most encompassing definition involves all aspects of the end-user interaction with a company, its products and services.
Read more
The Core Principles for Creating an MVP
If you’re developing a product, you’ve probably come across the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach.
Read more
Three essential ingredients for tidying up insights
Thanks to author Marie Kondo, many are on a “life-changing” mission to tidy up our homes and lives.
Read more
The Six Prototypes Every Startup Needs To Make
Smart startups spend on prototypes. Different levels offer different benefits along the process journey — here are six of the most important to make.
Read more
Deconstructing fidelity
Fidelity is the degree of exactness to which a model reproduces the real thing.
Read more
How To Protect UI with Design Patents
User interface design patents are more important than ever. Here are tips for designers on how to make the UI patent process work for you.
Read more
Read our observations on product development and the latest industry trends in our product innovation blog.