Nectar opened its doors to hold a workshop to guide industrial design students attending the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), through the user-centered design portion of their product development process.
Prior to attending this workshop, students were required to work in their current teams to develop initial design concepts for a reusable water bottle or thermos based on the needs of five categories of users: the camper, the health nut, the festival fanatic, the Silicon Valley techie, and the emerging athlete. Students were asked to identify the top four user needs for their team’s chosen genre and develop user-centered design concepts to address those needs.
At the workshop, CSULB students were treated to a tour of the creative design and engineering spaces followed by a questions and answers (Q&A) session with Darren Saravis, Nectar’s CEO, award winning innovator, and respected lecturer.
After the Q&A session, students attended breakaway sessions where each team presented their initial design concepts to professionals from the Nectar team. Each student brought a mock-up prototype made of various materials such as fiberboard, paper, tape, and foam. Nectar collaborated with students to refine concepts, sketch their ideas and configurations, and iterate a final mock-up with all their inputs.
Once final mock-ups were completed, each group presented their revised concepts to the entire class of students and Nectar’s workshop leaders. The whole group discussed user needs and human factors involved in the final configurations to further build on the design concepts learned during the workshop.
The workshop was completed with a luncheon mixer giving students a chance to further connect with the Nectar team, and learn more about a day in the life of an industrial product design engineer.
Nectar is not only dedicated to providing innovative industrial product development services for clients, but believes in creating a better future for the world one engineering breakthrough at a time. It is to this end, that all of us here at Nectar find pleasure in sharing our resources to help train the next generation of industrial designers to create problem-solving products.
