Product Designers vs. Engineers

Why you need both product design and product engineering for your project.

We are product designers. A question we frequently hear from new clients is just wherein the difference between our job and that of product engineers lies - and why they need both for successful product development. This seems to be unclear especially for startups and companies that have not developed a new product in a while, and are thus less familiar with the process.
Why does it take both design and engineering for product development? Where do the respective competences and responsibilities lie? How do they work together for their clients to create product solutions that work and delight?

A large part of our expertise as product designers lies in designing technologically advanced products. Our job is to make these products usable, understandable and desirable. We focus on users to define product features and form: establishing workflows for intuitive product use, designing three-dimensional shape, physical interaction elements and digital interfaces; we adjust look & feel for brand and market. We do not develop the underlying technologies, nor do we develop technical engineering for these products.

"Our job is to make these products usable, understandable and desirable."

Basically, we optimize products to make humans happy: customers, users – and our clients’ sales department! Usability, look, shape, user experience, and a fitting presentation on the market serve this purpose and are thus clearly on the designer’s side.

Product engineers, on the other hand, make sure that all those little demons hiding within physical matter (or software code) stay happy. Thus, issues related purely to the technical field are clearly on the engineer’s side: when it comes to structural integrity, mechanical/electronic components, and production preparation, the little demons within need to stay happy, or they will sabotage the product, so to speak.

The next post of this series will deal with the notable overlap between these two disciplines: to develop successful products, product designers develop creative solutions with technical aspects in mind, while engineers work on the technical basis for these creative solutions. Coming soon in the Antimatter Lab!

See what Antimatter can do for you and contact us to talk about your project!
Read more thoughts on product design and UX/UI design in our lab section!

About the author: Heinrich Lentz is the founder of Antimatter, a physical / digital product design agency in Vienna/Austria, and functions as its design director. Previously he has been working in product and ux/ui design for agencies in Austria and Spain and lecturing at IED Barcelona.

Photo by Gavin Allanwood on Unsplash

Tags: product design, Technology, User

February 25, 2021

Design for a new outdoors clientele

A Challenge for European Outdoors/Winter Sports Brands

Since the 90s, snowboarding, freestyle skiing and freeriding have had a tremendous cultural impact. A generation that grew up with action sports and now in their 30s and 40s is looking to equip their children and themselves for less extreme ventures.

They expect style and a certain youthful “sexiness” as a matter of course. American (and Scandinavian) brands have long understood this, offering stylish goods for the mainstream winter sports and mountaineering markets. Take The North Face as an example.

These new mainstream consumers are not willing to compromise on “sexiness” even for regular outdoors products - but are often not able to find this with traditional Central European quality manufacturers, and are forced to look elsewhere. At the same time, the cohort too old to be impressed by the advent of action sports back in the 90s is slowly fading out of the consumer demographic.

As far as design goes, many European quality brands will need to step up their game.

See what Antimatter can do for you and contact us to talk about your project!
Read more thoughts on product design and UX/UI design in our lab section!

About the author: Heinrich Lentz is the founder of Antimatter, a physical / digital product design agency in Vienna/Austria, and functions as its design director. Previously he has been working in product and ux/ui design for agencies in Austria and Spain and lecturing at IED Barcelona.

Photo by Zachary Kyra-Derksen on Unsplash

Tags: Innovation, product design, trends

February 15, 2021

Our Takeaways from ISPO 2021

ISPO 2021 Takeaways – Winter & Outdoor Sporting Goods

This year’s ISPO Sports Fair took place online in the first week of February – and we dove right in. These are our observations:

Big innovations come from small companies and start-ups
Sensors and IoT are taking over the sports sector
Traditional European quality brands need to step up their game

1. Big innovations come from small companies & startups

The most striking innovations this year came from smaller companies and start-ups. Some highly specialized – like the Auftriib “vertical crampon”, a hybrid between snowshoes and crampons for steep, deep-snow ascent. Some quite revolutionary like Moonbikes’ compact, electrical snow scooter: lighter and easier to handle than traditional snowmobiles – and completely silent.

2. Sensors and IoT are taking over the sports sector

We were quite impressed just how far sensors and chips have evolved to offer compelling, real-world applications in the sports sector. The increased presence of digital technology exhibitors at ISPO was notable. Motesque for example enables smart, feedback-controlled fitness equipment. Graspor’s wearable device monitors physiological muscle values in real-time for optimum training results. VerifiR enhances customer experience through product authentication and digital content display, enabled by NFC technology.

3. Traditional European quality brands need to step up their game

A previous observation we have seen reinforced at this year’s ISPO is a widening gap between mainstream consumer trends and the offering of traditional, Central European quality manufacturers of mountaineering, outdoors and winter sports gear. Please stick around for a separate post on this topic, to appear shortly in the Antimatter Lab!

Have a look at Biorower S1, an "ISPO Brandnew"-awarded smart rowing trainer!
See what Antimatter can do for you and contact us to talk about your project!
Read more thoughts on product design and UX/UI design in our lab section!

About the author: Heinrich Lentz is the founder of Antimatter, a physical / digital product design agency in Vienna/Austria, and functions as its design director. Previously he has been working in product and ux/ui design for agencies in Austria and Spain and lecturing at IED Barcelona.

Photo by Alex Lange on Unsplash

Tags: customer experience, Innovation, product design, trends