All products go through a life cycle that progress in stages during the existence of the product. Designers should consider a product’s life cycle while envisioning or creating something new. There are four stages of life for all products:
Introduction: launch of a product (it can coincide with final stage of development). Normally involves early adopters.
Growth: focus is to scale in supply and performance to meet product’s demand. Efforts to get requirements for next version of product should be underway.
Maturity: peak of life cycle. Sales decreases while competitors increase. Focus to enhance product features and maximize customer satisfaction.
Decline: sales decline, market share at risk. Focus to minimize maintenance and develop transition to new products. Testing of next generation products should begin at this point.
Lidwell, Holden & Butler: Universal Principles of Design.
Example 1: Universal Principles of Design
Example 2: Is the traditional GPS dead?
Example 3: Apple iPod
https://themarketingagenda.com/2014/06/01/end-of-the-cycle-for-apples-ipod/
Hi Francis, you did a good job of articulating the different stages of a product life cycle and how it relates to designers in envisioning or creating something new, as well as the most appropriate actions to focus on at each step of the way.
Most companies seek to be early innovators and the successful ones set the precedent for an array of products to follow. However, this strategy doesn’t always succeed. A personal example I have was the family digital camera, circa 2000, the Sony Mavica, which literally ran on 3.5″ floppy disks. (Yes, such a contraption existed in the second millennium and my parents bought it.) The Mavica line has (unsurprisingly) been discontinued. Sony continues to produce digital cameras in the Cyber-shot and Alpha series, which use Memory Stick and other flash card technologies for storage, but the Mavica line, announced in 1981 as the world’s first electronic still camera, went through the entire product life cycle—positioned first as the “pioneer of the digital era” to a relic of the past.
In response to Juan, I understand both perspectives on the example of the GPS. In this case, I believe Francis meant its life cycle as a physical navigation device dependant on satellite systems, versus its transition and ubiquitous use as a software app on one’s phone. The prevalence and increasing computing power of smartphones displace the need for a traditional, standalone GPS device serving a singular purpose.
I am not in full agreement with the example of the GPS. In this case, the technology is not dead, it just migrated from one physical device (the out-of-fashion, dedicated, GPS box) into a plethora of other devices, like phones, watches, etc.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exhibition/global-era/going-mobile