Proof of Concept Projects
Validate a complete product strategy in 3-6 months
Would you like to expand your marketshare with a new product innovation? Do you need to pivot your company's product because your competition has reduced your profitability? Would you like to significantly reduce costly design, engineering and marketing risks associated with launching a new scaled product? Do you need to ensure product launch success because of legal, environmental, financial accountability, health, political, security or ethical constraints? Moonraker Insights Proof of Concept prototyping projects enable you to validate a product innovation strategy with confidence. Dramatically increase your return-on-investment of engineering, marketing and other precious resources. Let us help you prototype what your customers need and want, so you can build and launch a scaled product fewer costly iterations and minimized risks.
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Our Proof of Concept (PoC) projects are complete end-to-end product innovation and validation activities that are designed to mesh with your company's existing scaled and innovation product teams. A Moonraker Insights specialist will work with you and your stakeholders to clarify your primary product innovation goal, then work with you to a define a customized project framework and success measures. Our professionals can guide software, hardware and/or service product solutions. This approach enables you to get a pivotal product strategy completed within a single fiscal year.
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We will help you choose a Proof of Concept approach that leverages existing software, hardware and/or services to maximize efficiency. We specialize in "white glove" services to manage in a systematic, holistic way. For example, we have expertise in patenting intellectual property, defining trade secrets, forming strategic partnerships, guiding change management and other important activities for a successful new product. Our tailored approach includes embedding key staff of your team into each project phase and a final integration monitoring phase to maximize knowledge transfer from the Proof of Concept project into your design, engineering, marketing and other production teams. These services are most typically requested by leaders of medium and large organizations existing product questions. A case study and typical projects details are described below.
Advantages
Choosing Moonraker Insights as your partner for user experience research offers many benefits for your product development, including...
Confidentiality
Partner with an experienced outside perspective before internal changes
Transparency
Increase information sharing to efficiently and effectively solve issues from their core
Independence
Reduce risk of bias and uncertainty for your key decisions
Activities
Moonraker Insights will assemble a professional cross-functional product innovation initiative to meet your goal. A Principal at Moonraker Insights will work with you to assemble and lead talent from its partner network and your company in a way that best matches your needs.
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Stakeholder alignment & project goal workshops
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Prototype - Test - Retrospective Iterations
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Project proposal & initial plan
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Synthesize & share key insights
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Cross-functional team formation + participant recruitment
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Monitor insights integration with stakeholder teams
Case Study
The following case study highlights a typical end-to-end project for a phone tech company considering adding a new touchscreen display that artificially rendered the "feel" of button clicks. This case study involves concepting both new hardware and software.
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Problem
The company's existing touchscreen provided basic "vibration" buzzes when a user touched a graphical button. The CTO needed to validate user perception and preference of a potential new high-definition haptic part designed to feel the same as mechanical buttons, thereby providing users better confirmation of touchscreen interactions.
Solution
This project involved a cross-functional product innovation team of 2 hardware engineers, 2 software engineers, 1 researcher and 1 project manager. Within a 6 month period, a concept prototype phone was created for A/B studies comparing the current basic vibration touchscreen (Concept A) and the potential new high-definition touchscreen (Concept B). Parallel software prototypes of key visual touchscreen interactions (different button click styles and intensities) were created to be displayed on Concept A and Concept B. A two-phase user research program was deployed to validate the return-on-investment of Concept B compared to Concept A. Phase 1 involved a lab study of detailed touch perception tests and preference ratings with 12 participants selected from a pool of target users. Phase 2 involved partnering with the company's marketing department to deploy the prototype during a major trade show; a diverse range of 200 participants performed a simplified version of the Phase 1 perception tests and perception ratings.
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Results
The concept prototype was demonstrated to the company's C-Suite in addition to technical stakeholders; the research results were then presented to technical and business stakeholders in an interactive workshop format. The company decided to move forward with integrating the new high-definition part its next generation phone. The scaled design, engineering and manufacturing teams leveraged the insights from the concepting project to seemlessly integrate the new part - thereby preventing tens of millions of dollars in potential losses from a failed product launch and beating a competitor phone company to market by 3 months because most potential problems were identified early in the design process.
Typical Project Details
Almost anyone can grab a few people off the street and ask their opinions. However, is such an approach the best for your key business decisions? We at Moonraker Insights prefer a better approach. Guided by the "garbage in, garbage out" maxim, we lead quality participant screening to help you focus on the best feedback, ethical procedures so you maintain regulatory compliance, and careful research analyses to provide you confidence in your evidence-based decisions.
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Moonraker Insights will lead the creation of product prototypes as a tangible, visual way to convey research insights. Products can be any combination of software, hardware and service solutions. Our research reports will help you more easily align and communicate with your stakeholders. Contact us to discuss deliverable, target audience, and time & budget details that best match your needs.
Deliverables
Functional product prototypes (software, hardware and/or service); research reports; quality participant management and research analyses that you can rely on for key decisions
Audience
C-Suite and leaders responsible for strategic new product decisions; typically medium-sized or large-sized corporations of 250 staff or more
Time & Budget
Complete projects starting at 3 months and $250k; lead times as little as 3 weeks; ad hoc followup work available by the day