MYP Design Markets, Trends and Consumer Needs Notes

Market Research Tells You What People Do, Not What You Hope

1. Market research is the work of finding out who might buy a product, what they use instead right now and what annoys them about it, done before you commit to a design.
2. Primary research is data you gather yourself: a questionnaire to 30 students, a timed observation of the queue at the water fountain, an interview with the school caretaker.
3. Secondary research is data somebody else already collected: a manufacturer's specification sheet, a population table, a consumer group's product test.
4. Quantitative methods give numbers you can graph, such as 22 out of 30 students carrying a bottle in an outside pocket, while qualitative methods give the reason, such as because it leaks onto their books.
5. Weak questions produce useless data, so "would you like a better bag?" tells you nothing, while "how many times this term has something leaked inside your bag?" gives you a count you can act on.
6. All of this feeds criterion A, Inquiring and analysing, where the marker wants the raw data and your reading of it rather than a tidy conclusion on its own.

Segments: You Cannot Design for Everybody at Once

1. A market segment is a group of buyers who share something that changes what they need, such as age, income, climate, or how they already do the task.
2. Segments are usually described by demographics such as age and household size, by geography such as city or rural, and by behaviour such as heavy user, first time buyer or gift buyer.
3. Your target market is the one segment you choose, and choosing settles arguments, because a water bottle for 11 year olds and a bottle for road cyclists need different lids.
4. A niche market is a small segment the mainstream ignores, like left handed scissors or wheelchair friendly cutlery, and small producers survive there because large firms think the numbers are too low.
5. A user persona turns a segment into one imagined person with a name, a daily routine and a budget, which makes it possible to ask whether she would really pay 12 pounds for this.
6. Name your target user in the design brief in one sentence, since every test you run later is a test against that person.

Needs and Wants Are Two Different Jobs for a Product

1. A need is a requirement the product must meet to work at all, such as a torch throwing enough light to show a path three metres ahead.
2. A want is something the buyer would like but could do without, such as that torch charging over USB or coming in matte black.
3. Both belong in your specification, but needs become the points you test against and wants become the points you trade away when time or money runs short.
4. The line between them moves with the user, since USB charging is a want for a camper with a car and a need for someone living where no shop stocks AA batteries.
5. Mixing the two up produces a product that looks right and fails the job, like a school bag with a lovely tapered shape that will not take an A4 folder flat.
6. Write specification points as testable statements, so "must hold a 320 by 240 mm folder without bending it" beats "must be big enough".

Trends Last Years, Fads Burn Out in Months

1. A trend is a direction of change that builds slowly and keeps going, like the move from wired to wireless headphones across the 2010s.
2. A fad spikes and collapses, like fidget spinners, which went from almost nothing to sold out shelves in spring 2017 and to clearance bins by that autumn.
3. The difference decides how a firm invests, because a trend justifies a steel injection mould that pays for itself over years while a fad has to be made and sold before the peak passes.
4. Trend research looks at the conditions around a product, such as ageing populations, tighter rules on single use plastic and rising electricity prices, because those shape demand for a decade.
5. Fashion runs on a rough twenty year loop, which is why bucket hats and chunky trainers from the 1990s came back around 2018.
6. For a school project choose a trend, since the project takes months and a fad will be finished before you are.

The Product Life Cycle: Sales Have a Shape

1. The product life cycle plots sales against time in five stages: development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
2. Development spends and earns nothing, covering research, prototypes and tooling, so the account is deep in the red before one unit is sold.
3. Introduction brings low sales and heavy advertising, and prices are often high because early buyers will pay more and no rival exists yet.
4. Growth is the steep climb where unit costs fall as volume rises and competitors arrive with their own versions.
5. Maturity is the long flat top where most of the profit is earned and firms fight on price, colour ranges and small feature changes.
6. Decline is falling sales as something better arrives, and the firm must choose between discounting the stock, keeping it for a small loyal group, or withdrawing it.
7. Extension strategies stretch maturity: a new colourway, a cheaper stripped back version, a new country, or a small redesign such as swapping micro USB for USB C on an existing speaker.

Planned Obsolescence: Designed to Stop Being Wanted

1. Planned obsolescence is designing a product so it stops being useful or desirable after a set period, which pulls the next purchase forward and keeps sales flat instead of falling.
2. Functional obsolescence builds in a physical ending, such as a lithium cell glued into a sealed case, so a battery that has lost half its capacity means a whole new device.
3. Style obsolescence changes the appearance on a schedule so last year's model announces itself, a tactic General Motors used deliberately from the 1920s with annual model changes.
4. Systemic obsolescence kills a working product from outside, when security updates stop, a charging standard changes or the spare parts are no longer made.
5. The defence is that steady replacement pays for the research that makes the next model genuinely better and keeps factory workers employed.
6. The objection is that the cost lands on the buyer and on the waste tip, because replacing a phone every two years instead of every five roughly doubles the mining and manufacturing per decade of use.
7. Law is moving against it, with EU ecodesign rules from 2021 requiring makers of washing machines, fridges and televisions to keep spare parts available for years after a model stops being sold.

A Gap in the Market Is Not the Same as a Market in the Gap

1. A gap in the market is a product nobody currently sells, and you find one by listing what exists and noticing what is missing.
2. A market in the gap is evidence that enough people would actually pay for it, which is a separate question with a separate answer.
3. Many gaps exist for good reasons, and nobody sells a heated ice cream scoop because the product solves a problem hardly anybody has.
4. Test for demand by watching how people cope now, because a clumsy workaround such as an elastic band wrapped round a folder is strong evidence that the problem is real.
5. Ask what they already spend on the problem, since somebody buying three cheap bottles a year has shown you a budget of about 15 pounds.
6. Estimate how many people share the problem, because something that suits eleven people in your year group is a project rather than a product.
7. Write both halves into criterion A: name the gap, then give the evidence that somebody would pay to have it filled.