Research, design and technology consultancy Cambridge Design Partnership is pleased to announce the launch of diialog™, a new insight service that helps gain a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour.

diialog™ uses miniature sensing technology discreetly fitted to products or packaging to capture quantitative data during user tests. Our team of experts monitor activity in real-time or at the end of a trial to generate a conclusive analysis of consumer behaviours and usage patterns.

Being largely unseen, diialog™ encourages natural behaviour and can be particularly useful in sensitive consumer goods, personal or healthcare contexts to record specific actions and routines. Furthermore, the data is totally factual and impartial, removing any ambiguity or misreporting.

The quantitative research inputs that diialog™ generates are invaluable when translated by our experts into actionable insights and fed into the product design process. The outcome is the creation of market-led products that are more closely tailored towards the end user with enhanced or entirely new product experiences.

Many studies suggest the failure rate of new product introductions is high, according to Crawford C Merle, 35% of products fail to deliver significant return¹. When a product successfully meets, or exceeds the expectations of users the returns can be high, therefore delivering an optimised experience is of fundamental importance to protect the innovation investment and brand reputation. The thinking behind the diialog™ service is that a modest increase in investment at the front end to develop deeper insights, and validate new concepts and experiences can achieve greater confidence and save vital time and money downstream.

Tom Lawrie-Fussey, Cambridge Design Partnership’s Technology Development Leader explains, “We’re excited about diialog’s™ ability to help our clients’ make more informed innovation investment decisions and better manage risk. It will benefit brand owners and manufacturers who believe in a consumer-centric approach to product design, as they now have access to additional, highly accurate information that complements existing qualitative and quantitative research techniques that can be combined and compared with contextual ethnographic insight to deliver further confidence of potential in-market success.”

diialog™ has already been successfully deployed in the cosmetics and sports industry and there is a great deal of interest in other sectors such as the food and drink, healthcare packaging and medical devices.

CDP will demonstrate the diialog™ system at this year’s FEI 2017 conference in Boston. Please come and join us on May 8th – 10th for a discussion and live demonstration at booth 7.

To find out more about diialog™ contact us at hello@cambridge-design.co.uk.

 ¹Why Products Fail

ABOUT CAMBRIDGE DESIGN PARTNERSHIP

Cambridge Design Partnership is located in both Cambridge UK and in Palo Alto California, USA. It is a leading technology and product design partner focused on helping its client’s businesses grow. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations.

Cambridge Design Partnership specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets and its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and solve the challenges its clients face.

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Contact us at hello@cambridge-design.co.uk

We have recently opened a new Hackspace within our Cambridge R&D centre to complement our extensive lab and traditional workshop facilities. We asked the team what the rationale is behind this new facility.

Mike Cane, partner at CDP explains, “Our mission at CDP is to create market-leading new products for our clients as quickly and efficiently as possible. To achieve this we take an evidence-based approach to make the right design and engineering decisions along the way.  The new Hackspace gives our engineers and visiting clients an informal space to collaborate, produce rapid prototypes and conduct proof-of-concept testing.”

He added, “When I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University one of our tutors told us that the only way to gain knowledge is through experimentation. It was one of those career defining moments for me. While inspiration and analysis are crucial to solve problems quickly they only get you so far. When you are creating something new you have to engineer it, build a prototype and test it in the lab. Unfortunately there are no short cuts. This is why we have invested heavily in lab and workshops facilities at our Cambridge R&D centre so we can do this quickly to a high standard.”

Reece Gale, site and workspace manager continues, “CDP has a large, well-equipped traditional workshop that includes several CNC machine tools, injection moulding machines and two high-end 3D printers. We encourage all our project teams to get hands on and use these facilities. But recently we are finding that the new generation of engineers joining us from university are more at home with digital prototyping methods than traditional workshop machines. That’s why we have opened the Hackspace. It brings together 3D CAD with the new generation of low cost 3D printers and laser cutters in an environment that is collaborative and creative. It’s a different way of working that is natural to the emerging digital generation. You can make almost anything using Delrin sheet, a laser cutter and a 3D printer!”

In recent weeks CDP hosted two delegations of entrepreneurs from Europe, who were keen to learn more about how they could use innovation to create value in their early stage businesses.

The entrepreneurs, from universities in Finland, Latvia and Estonia, visited Cambridge Design Partnership as part of a Venture Camp organised by Professor Alan Barrell.

Cambridge is a key destination for entrepreneurs seeking to learn what makes one of Europe’s largest technology hubs so effective at generating and commercialising new ideas. While Cambridge is best known for its world-leading university, recent statistics show that the Cambridge cluster hosts over 4,300 knowledge intensive companies, employing nearly 60,000 staff and turning over £11bn.

Alan Cucknell, CDP’s Front End of Innovation Leader, hosted the Finnish group. Together they explored why so many innovations fail and identified some common pitfalls. Alan highlighted the importance of building innovation for both entrepreneurs and bluechips on an evidence-based framework. He also introduced them to CDP’s process for identifying market insights, translating these to compelling ideas and then developing optimised products. (CDP calls this Potential Realised). Alan reflects on the visit, “I’ve learnt a lot about innovation from entrepreneurs and start-ups. It was super to spend the afternoon meeting entrepreneurs from such a range of industries and sharing our experience of what it takes to succeed with innovative businesses.”

Mike Cane, Partner and Founder hosted the Latvian and Estonian teams. The energetic entrepreneurs were keen to pitch their business concepts and receive feedback from CDP’s team. They were developing an exciting range of businesses including micro car parks for busy cities, laser therapy devices and an app-based incentive scheme for food brands.

“It’s always great fun meeting entrepreneurs”, explains Mike. “Turning ideas into commercial products is our expertise and we’re passionate about it. So meeting enthusiastic entrepreneurs who are at an early stage in their business journey is very exciting. We had so much experience to share with them and wish them every success in their respective projects.”