Interim Product Design Guidelines and Strategies

Abstract

With the improvement of technology, more and more radical products, which provide unprecedented customer benefits, have appeared in the market these years, but the diffusion of them is slow and still a big challenge for firms. However, a new type of innovative product, called an interim product, can offer radical products’ features but diffuses faster. Each interim product is more affordable but can still create unprecedented features by combining them with an existing mainstream product. Consequently, more people can have the advantages of radical products by adopting interim ones designed by referring to their counterpart radical products. On the other hand, from a commercial perspective, the development of interim products is more efficient than radical ones. When companies design an interim product, they have clearer directions during product concept development because they can refer to an existing radical one. Therefore, this study will organize the patterns and attributes of existing interim products and create an interim product design guideline and strategies. Finally, this study demonstrates the application of the guideline and makes conclusions.