Product design is relatively new for me. If you believe Malcolm Gladwell then my chances of doing a great job are slim. Gladwell wrote Outliers and proposed the 10,000 Hour Rule which states you need to put in at least 10,000 hours in a field before getting a great result.
The book is well worth a read. It argues well that we give individuals too much praise for their accomplishments. Beyond some point we should limit the economic rewards for an individual’s contribution. But that is another topic…
Iterative design uses prototypes to evolve a better solution. Iterative design assumes that we will not be able to get it right first time. A lot of designers can’t work like this because their time is expensive. They need to get it right because the customer will not pay for multiple iterations of the design process.
Rapid prototyping opens the door to iterative design with a much lower cost. As I write this we are working on the 19th version of the HiLO Lens prototype. We’ve explored quite a few bad ideas ! But we want to make a great product.
I suspect the 10,000 hours Gladwell points out is strongly related to the social context. It has often taken 10,000 hours of hard work to get to a point where someone is given the chance to succeed on a larger scale. But in the age of the internet ideas can get exposure with much lower risk and cost. Collaboration is also an amplifier, HiLO Lens involves many people with more than 10,000 hours in their respective fields. So I’m optimistic for HiLO Lens.