Insights

Advice for product innovation, design, and development
2024 05 24 DFM 7 things HERO
Design for Manufacturing: 7 Things Every Designer Should Know
When done well, DFM prevents quality issues and eliminates manufacturing waste. It de-risks new product development by preventing the costly scenario of learning about manufacturability issues when you’re about to launch.
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Building an MVP app in just eight weeks
In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to work apart, Delve’s leadership launched an internal pitch competition.
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Inspiration Index 11-17-20
Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a regular basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.
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The long haul
We can always count on the market to push change, whether the players in the market like it or not. Failure to adapt quickly to changing market forces will eventually come back to bite you.
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Inspiration Index 10-13-20
Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a bi-weekly basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.
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Verhalen & Norvaisas to speak at IDSA's Women in Design
We present "Decision Making and Bias: Your Role in the Design Process and How to Manage It" at IDSA.
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Inspiration Index 9-25-20
Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a bi-weekly basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.
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Top 5 lessons from Badger Shield project
Badger Shield gave me the opportunity to collaborate with an amazing group of men and women this year – designers, suppliers, manufacturers, and customers. I expect to have built lifelong collaborators and friends through this trial by virus. (For background, read the article in Wired).
12 Article Amy Feedback
The gift that keeps on giving
I had a manager who gave me the book “Feedback is a Gift.” At the time, it didn’t feel like much of a gift – mostly because her method for feedback was, well, constant. But her heart was in the right place.
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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.
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How STEEPLE Analysis Informs Design Strategy
STEEPLE analysis is a tool for scanning your external environment. It helps teams understand phenomena and imagine new opportunities.
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Reflections on Delve Talks, Part 2: Building a Culture of Innovation
For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity and culture building. You can find the whole series here.
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Reflections on Delve Talks, Part 1: Building a Culture of Innovation
For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity, and culture building. You can find the whole series here
City Landscape Next To Forest - Consumer Product Design & Development
Critical Perspectives on Sustainable Product Design
In 2020, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) held its first Deep Dive on sustainable product design. The ensuing conversations revealed a burning need for collaboration between not just designers, but everyone involved in the creation and use of products.
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Reflecting on my privilege
As my beloved country seethes in turmoil over the horrible and unjust killing of George Floyd, I - like everyone I know - have struggled to make sense of a senseless situation, and formulate some sort of coherent comments.
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What is Design Strategy and Why Do You Need One?
Sometimes having a breakthrough idea is the easy part of innovation. Navigating the organization and turning that idea into reality is often the hardest part. That's why you need design strategy.
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Bend, don’t break
(Any Day But) Tuesday… If it was Tuesday, you could guarantee there was no electricity. You couldn’t iron your clothes, watch TV or turn on the lights. You’d do anything to have a portable fan blast air on your face on a crushing summer afternoon, but you couldn’t.
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Homework with Amy Lee
While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.
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Open thoughts on open source
I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about the spectrum of successes and failures related to the open-source maker movement and its contributions to addressing the COVID crisis.
2023 11 07 Data Driven Customer Foresight HERO
Four Steps to Data-Driven Customer Foresight
Most products take anywhere from three to ten years to develop from idea to commercialization. But many companies rely on their understanding of consumers today to make decisions for these future products.
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Homework with Corin Frost
While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.
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What’s next? It’s up to us
We are told the world has changed, I have heard people talk about the recent past as “the before” in recognition that we are in transition and not going back. I have also heard people talking as if this is a tough time, that we need to buckle down and wait for it to pass.
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How to Write 'How Might We' Questions for Product Strategy
Translating research into actions is often more art than science. We have found “how might we” questions to be useful tools. Here's how to write one.
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Universal PAPR hood design
We are happy to publish all our design files for the project.
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Should Covid change your research plans?
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been asked by clients and my team has thought a lot about the question, “Should we be doing research now?” We’ve also had to think about, “Can we do research now? How?”
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PAPR Hood for Healthcare Heroes
The goal: To outfit every health care worker with PAPRs – an amazing piece of equipment used to filter air and inflate a bubble around the wearer’s head to reject any contaminants.
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How to Make Way For Radical Innovation
Before starting on an innovation strategy, decide which type you're chasing: Incremental, disruptive, or radical innovation. Each requires a unique approach.
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Affordable PPE for the developing world
The Badger Shield has shown that a distributed supply chain can create massive quantities of effective and cost-effective personal protective equipment (PPE) in a short time. Can this model translate to the developing world if COVID-19 cases start to rise in African, SE Asian and Latin American urban centers?
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Our Favorite Remote Research Methods for Product Design
When in-person research needs to shift, try these remote research methods. All have yielded great insights for us at various stages of product design.
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Operation #BadgerShield
Since we posted a blog post talking about how the Open Source Face Shield project had started to supply the University of Wisconsin hospitals with this critical personal protection equipment (PPE), our team has had little time to breathe.
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Vamsee Pamula, Founder & President, Baebies