Followers of Blue Badge Style will know that we entered the Design Council’s SPARK programme in 2017. We were lucky enough to win funding to produce DRINK The Inclusive Glass Holder. We were finding it difficult to feature stylish mobility accessories in our ‘D’ List (new things in the world of disability) so we created our own brand – The ADDITI+ON Collection. Developed to give ‘effortless independence for people who have their hands full’ – and DRINK is the first product.
As part of the winners obligations we were interviewed by The Design Council in a series of videos and asked what we had achieved on the programme. Here are our responses:
First, how we identified our market the first thing to do in ‘user centred design’. There’s no point developing something that looks good but does nothing:
Second, What’s next – to make a sustainable brand we identified other products through asking our community of BBS testers and a subset of our network who volunteered to take part in an online survey. If you’d like to join our band of brothers/sisters/neutrals just contact us .
Third, Why if you have a good idea for a physical product, you should enter the Design Council SPARK program and become a designer & ‘learn how to use post-it notes’!!
So there you have it, an insight into the workings of ‘user centred design’. Keep watching this space as DRINK will be on sale in March 2018 through our SHOP and we’ll start developing PHONE, a good looking phone holder, just as soon as we can get enough funds!
