Don Rickert Research & Design

About Don Rickert Research & Design (Summary)

We are a Product Design, Design Research, Consumer Insights, UX (User Experience) and NPD (New Product Development) firm...Yes that includes Usability Evaluation, Survey Design & Analysis and Quantitative Data Analysis!

Putting it as simply and directly as possible, our primary business to date has been to help other companies like yours...

• To understand what your customers, consumers and/or users really care about
• To determine whether or not they care about what you are planning to sell them.
• To discover what it will take to bring your new product vision in line with your customers' and consumers' true needs and desires (and what are they willing to pay?)
• Design and test alternative embodiments of new products with real people before the development budget is wasted on a loser!

Basically, we do not participate in any of the common practices used to obtain free services (we have seen them all and can sniff them out in minutes...trust us on this)

• Free consulting...our billing clock starts after the first 30 minutes of discussion, regardless of the discussion channel (e.g. telephone, email, "informal" lunch chat, etc.)
• Participate in initial discussions with staff members who DO NOT have final budget authority for the potential project
• Participate in "bake-offs" or any other type of competitive proposal and bidding process
• Evaluation of projects that are already finished
• "Rubber stamp" your solution that you have already decided to pursue

Contact us NOW: don@DonRickertDesign.com

Before wasting a lot of time on finding what may appear to be the best bargain, check out what some of our clients have to say about us (see Endorsements and Raves)

Want more details about our methods, process, and so forth? We've got your details RIGHT HERE!

Don Rickert Design Getting Back to its Core Business--Design!

The adventurous business climate has prompted us to rethink our business model and tactics. While we will continue our work in the area of ground-breaking musical instrument (Adventurous Muse) and high-performance rowing craft designs, we will also be renewing our emphasis on being a full-service multi-disciplinary design research and product design firm.

Dr. Don Rickert ponders our business future...

Click on the photos for larger views.

For the observant Industrial Designers among you, that sure as heck is a genuine Eams Chair!

Process

Since every consulting engagement is different, and our clients have their own product development processes, there is no single process. That being said, when developing our own products we do follow a specific NPD process, summarized on the diagram below. The diagram is a good way to organize communication of all of the things we can do FOR YOU. Click on the diagram for more...

Introducing Strategic Business Marketing On-Line

The website thumbnail you might have clicked on to get here is an image of the current project for Strategic Business Marketing On-Line: Small Business Specialists, a website designed and launched for the sole purpose of selling s single home without the assistance of a Real Estate Agent.

Click on the thumbnail image on the left for a full size view of a screen capture of the home page. You can look at the actual live website as well.

Our new line of business, Strategic Business Marketing On-Line, is dedicated to:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Traffic generation
• USEFUL analytics

...for your business web site.

A number of years ago a book, The Attention Economy, was published. It described a coming time when the coin of the realm would be getting noticed. That time is NOW! For a business, you have to be noticed by a whole lot of people who love what you are selling in order to make money. Click here for some background details on this topic and more of our story.

Colleagues have asked us what we do to generate very high levels of traffic to our business sites and online stores. Helping other small businesses with websites to increase their SEO (i.e. get listed on page 1 of Google searches), generate lots of visitors to their sites and constantly improving visibility by proper use of the right web traffic analysis tools is the mission of Strategic Business Marketing On-Line. We can also help business that do not have a website to have a great one!

Click here for a list and description of our Strategic Business Marketing On-Line services, as well as some examples of achieving astounding web visibility in very short periods of time.

In-House Self-Funded and Investor-Funded Product Development

It is no secret that Don Rickert Design has unique expertise in the design, manufacturer and marketing of innovative musical instruments. It is indeed true that, in addition to our work for clients, we invent many new Don Rickert Design(tm) products in-house, being very careful to avoid conflicts of interest with our work for clients.

You might find our musical instrument ventures surprising. To read more about this and other in-house product development, click here.

Would you really want a product development firm that does not invent, manufacture and market its own products helping you with any aspect of your own product development efforts?