For my second day at Plexus, I began the morning with the industrial design group. We discussed how the group designs for the user not just based upon the customer’s needs. The industrial design group begins by defining the user and target audience of the product by creating a persona. A Persona is a document that defines the or many users that might be involved in a product from delivery to end of life. Chad described the most important aspect of industrial design is understanding the user. Therefore, the industrial design team finds users and spends time with the users and designs in multiple stages in the design process to understand their needs. Once the user is understood, a journey map is outlined for the current method of a process or task. Made up of multiple steps detailing the process, the benefits, and the drawbacks of the current method a journey helps to understand the improvements that could be made the product. Additionally, a journey map can be made for the future, what you intend on creating. I also spent some time with Jim and Cara who are Quality Engineers who elaborated on how to further requirements and ensure a products compliance and safety. Quality Engineers are involved throughout the whole process and are involved in narrowing down the idea. Quality Engineers begin by asking “What are your Intendids?”. An Intendids means who, what, where, when, why of your product. For my project in which I am creating a plant watering system, my intendids are a person who is busy either traveling or a working professional between the age of 20-45 who has a plant located in doors at a temperature between 65-75 degrees that needs little to moderate watering located in the United States. Additionally, the Quality Engineers reinforced the importance of SMART requirements, specific, measurable, testable, and repeatable. Additionally, Quality Engineers make sure that products are compliant to both laws and standards in all countries that the product will be sold into. They are in charge of documenting risk, mitigations, and testing. An important aspect of their job is verification in which both mitigations and requirements are tested to ensure that the goals and safety of the product. I forgot to post the environment, requirements, and validation statements from yesterday. I have added my work from today to that document, so you can see my progress towards a plant watering system. Look forward to another great day!
My phone cut out so picture coming soon!