Why Choosing the Right Material is Important for Your Product

Why Using High-Quality Material is Important

The product design process is always both a fun, creative time, as well as a tedious one. The best thing about working with a team of designers or a product development firm is that not only do they help guide you along the way, but they also let you know how detailed you can be while creating your product.

An important aspect of your product design is choosing the material in which your product is going to be made out of. Even though at first this might seem easy, there are a lot of different factors that one should consider before confidently choosing the material of their product.

Below is a list of the most important things to think about before choosing the best product material!

The Performance of Your Product

Hands down, the most important part of your product is its function or what it is designed to do. When thinking about the best product material to choose, make sure you factor in that whichever material you use allows your product to function and work easily and without difficulty.

With this in mind, consider the idea that using the wrong product material can result in your product not working at all. Sometimes your product’s material can get in the way of its functionality, so it’s important to factor in choosing a material that not only doesn’t get in the way but can also help your product work more efficiently.

You can also find yourself using more than one material for your product depending on what your product is designed to do and what it features, therefore, try to choose materials that also work well together.

The Best Product Material for Durability and Reliability

Of course, all inventors would ideally like to use the “best material out there” for their product. This can lead to inventors choosing the most expensive material because they believe that if it’s more expensive, it’s higher in quality. Although it is true that better quality material does come with a higher price point, it doesn’t mean that having or using that material is required or necessary for your product.

It’s important to do some deep research into what is available for your product and choose something that can get the job done without breaking. This is where prototyping is crucial because it allows you to test different materials and see which is the best product material that doesn’t make your product seem cheap, flimsy or not worth investing in.

Managing the Costs of Your Product Material

The cost of what it takes to make your product is the most important aspect of the business side of your product. Always keep in the back of your mind when inventing that if you plan on creating a product for mass production or to sell to a market, you need to be strategic in what you invest in as your product material.

Remember that although you’d want the best materials available for your product, sometimes the most expensive material isn’t required to make a functional product that works and is reliable. If you’re a startup or small business, managing your finances should be of the utmost importance, as should setting up budgets and managing finances.

Factoring in Manufacturing and Assembly Time

One thing to consider after choosing your product material is how long it will take to contact and source a manufacturer. There are many resources and manufacturers that can produce your product, but if you’re running on a certain timeline, manufacturing times can vary, and you can’t produce everything as quickly as you need.

For this reason, doing the right research for the right manufacturer is just as important as finding the best product material, as well as finding a manufacturer that has the right access to the material you’re looking to build your product with.

The more features your product has (if your product has a more intricate design or technical aspect), the longer it can take to get your product mass-produced. This is why timing and sourcing should be done in a timely manner to get your product on the market as soon as possible.

Design, Weight and Size

The last aspect to consider is choosing the best product material that can deliver your desired weight, size and design of your product. You might find that during the prototyping phase of creating your product, some materials can alter or have a major effect on how your product weighs, looks and feels when using it.

Even if your product can still function properly with a variety of the materials you chose, the feel of how your product works or functions is equally as important as having a functioning product because, above all, you want to make a product that feels good to use just as much as it works well.

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today, and we can set you up on a call with our Senior Product Strategist!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!