The big idea: Product analysis looks hard at an existing product through three lenses. A description says what it looks like. An analysis says what to do next.
The three lenses
- Function: what it is for.
- Performance: how well, in numbers.
- Features: what it has, and who each one serves.
The three lenses with their questions, then the step that matters most — analysing products that are nothing like yours.
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| Lens | Questions to ask | On the existing ward table |
|---|---|---|
| Function | What is it for, in the user's terms? What does each part contribute? | Holds a meal tray, a jug and personal items within reach of a bed |
| Performance | How fast, how heavy, how stable, how long? What happens at the limit? | Tips at 4 kg placed 80 mm from the edge; 14 seconds to reposition |
| Features | What has been added? Who is each one for? What is never used? | A tilting top nobody uses, and a swivel lock that needs two hands |
Performance is where the numbers come from: Function and features can be written without touching the product. Performance cannot.
Weigh it, time it, load it until it tips. Those numbers become the baseline your own design has to beat, and "better than the existing one" is meaningless without them.
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The statement is deliberate: analyse products that either provide a solution to the problem or can INSPIRE one.
Why inspiration matters: The second half is where the interesting ideas come from, because the problem you have has usually been solved somewhere else under a different name.
Borrowing a principle
State the problem abstractly
Not "the table rocks" but "a load applied outside the support base tips the object". Now the search is much wider.
Ask who else has solved it
Camera tripods, mobile scaffold towers, hospital drip stands, anglepoise lamps — all objects that must stay upright with a load reaching out sideways.
Take the principle, not the shape
A drip stand uses a five-star base whose legs extend beyond anything hung on it. That is a principle; copying the look of a drip stand is not.
Check it against your constraints
A five-star base is hard for a cleaner to get round, which is exactly the kind of conflict product analysis is supposed to surface early.
Analysis, not annotation: A photograph with labels pointing at parts is annotation. It becomes analysis when each label answers a question: what does this part contribute, how well does it do it, and who is it for?
How this is tested — analysing an existing product for function, performance and features. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Identify which lens a stated observation belongs to.
- Pick the measurement that belongs to performance.
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Analyse a named existing product through the three lenses.
- Explain how analysing an unrelated product could inspire a solution.
The trap: Describing the product. Colour, shape and material are not an analysis unless each one is tied to what it contributes or how well it performs.
Analyse an existing hospital bedside table through function, performance and features, and explain how the analysis would guide a redesign.
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