Product Design: Backpack Innovations
With the history of the backpack dating to prehistoric times, the modern backpack is a wonderful invention – allowing people to carry heavier loads with more comfort over longer distances. Innovations like the frame (internal and external), chest strap and hip belt have all advanced how people carry their gear in a more efficient way, which led us to concept how we might take real user data and improve upon something so commonly found in society and the outdoor industry.
Using DI (Design Innovation) methodology, we gathered anonymous user feedback, created user profiles, ran through copious amounts of design thinking practices and tore the modern internal frame backpack apart (literally) to understand better how we could innovate something so expanded upon already.
From our assignments and testing, we created three new improvements to the modern backpack, one physical to aid in mobility and ease-of-use issues for a niche, but important, part of the population, one digital to help expand access to the outdoors and travel, aiming to minimize friction through simple packing help, and one conceptual with a focus on biomechanical advantages of current pack features, trying to overcome what we found to be problems the backpack world has improved, but not yet solved entirely.
