7 Steps for Product Development..

A journey through my closet / wardrobe

I always wanted to make my closet look better. Every time I use to walk in, I would think to myself, if I had to re-design what would I do? And just as an apple fell down, I had a moment about using product skills and steps to revamp my closet. So here’s my closet development through the product journey.

Step 1: Define problem statement

My closet is open, unable to keep it organized and visually displeasing.

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However, there was one another problem, which I also wanted to address. Introducing Mr. Jasper (my Labrador) who thought, the closet was a good place to play and occasionally run through the clothes.

Consider that as part of my problem statement as well ;)

Step 2: Define your vision

As a closet user, I would like to have my clothes organized in a wardrobe, which would not be exposed and visually appeal to see (Quite demanding.. huh!)

Step 3: Discovery

With that vision in mind, I started to discover what’s available in the market? I didn’t wish to put a hole in my wallet, so wanted to consider something I can DIY or use professional contractors. However wanted to stay in my budget. I started my research by googling some of the local professionals such as closet by design and DIY options such as Ikea, wayfair . Within no time my Facebook and Instagram feed started flooding with recommendations. I also reached out to some of my friends to recommend a handyman if I go with my DIY options, who may work on my design (if I create one). With my discovery I got a fair idea about how much would it cost me professionally Vs DIY with some professional help and my design.

Step 4: Define personas.

Personas are characters in your product design, who would be your product users. Every personas has unique characteristic , role to play and different requirement. In my case I had 3 personas..

1. The lawmaker in the house (purple girl)
2. The law follower
3. The law breach(er)…< 10 yrs old

Step 5: Design and prototype

Now that I had clear vision and personas, it was time to work on my product design. I wanted to build something which would specifically fit my room specifications and also work based on my personas requirements. At this point, I came across Ikea’s home planner , which is a brilliant tool to get a visual feel of how a final product would look like.

I carried out a multiple design sessions with my personas making sure the design fits their product requirements. Took me couple of hours, but below are some of the design I came out with.

Step 6: Development work / Implementation.

To execute on my idea, while designing the product, it was clear to me the amount of effort it would take and also the help I would require. It was evident that this is surely not a single person job and even if I wear my DIY hat, it would be long and tiring hours. I decided to get handyman help with me working along.

Step 7: Get feedback, Re-iterate and keep improving.

While going through the implementation of closet design, we’d to make certain adjustment to the design based on space as well as the closets we had built so far. As pragmatic as industry and product development, we had to rework on some of the design requirements and also rework on implementation. But it all worked out good.

With the limited time and fixed budget, I was finally ready with my product.