product design Archives

Empathetic Engineering: Designing for Real People

As designers, we regularly design for people whose experiences may be very different from our own. We design for bodies with different proportions, abilities, sensitivities, and needs, and for people who may use a product in environments we have never experienced ourselves. Understanding those differences, and translating them into better design decisions, is where empathy becomes an essential part of design.

Empathy is more than imagining ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It is an active process of questioning our assumptions, observing how people actually behave, and using research, prototyping, and testing to understand experiences beyond our own. It can shape everything from the pressure of a strap or placement of a seam to the force required to operate a mechanism. Understanding someone’s experience is only the beginning. The real value of empathy comes from what designers do with that understanding. Ideally, these empathetic observations result in smart structural decisions; mechanical function and human interaction work in harmony to create a good user experience.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into that process, the question of empathy becomes even more relevant. AI can help us generate ideas, synthesize information, and explore possibilities faster, but it cannot replace the human experience at the center of the design problem.

At Interwoven Design, designing around real human needs is fundamental to our work in wearable technology, soft goods, and products that interact directly with the body. In this Insight article, we explore what empathetic engineering really means, how it manifests in the smallest design decisions, and why understanding people remains one of the most important aspects of creating products that work in the real world.

From Empathy to Engineering

Empathy becomes meaningful when it impacts the design outcome. Consider a seemingly simple piece of user feedback: “This gets uncomfortable after an hour.” On its own, the statement describes an experience, not a design problem. The designer’s job is to investigate what is happening beneath it. Where does the discomfort occur? Is it caused by pressure, friction, heat, weight, or restricted movement? Does it happen only during certain activities? Does the product shift as the body moves? Is the problem caused by the material itself, or by the way that material is constructed? Each question moves the observation closer to an actionable specification. A pressure point might lead to a change in geometry or load distribution. Heat might suggest a more breathable material or a different ventilation strategy. Restricted movement could require rethinking the construction or introducing flexibility at a key joint. A few millimeters of additional clearance, a different seam placement, a softer edge, or a change in how components connect can fundamentally alter the experience of wearing or using a product.

Muslin mockup of the Perci Emergency Preparedness Vest used to test pocket placement and accessibility — An early muslin mockup of the Perci Emergency Preparedness Vest used to explore pocket placement, accessibility, and fit on the body.

This is where empathy intersects with engineering. Ergonomics and human factors help us understand how a product interacts with the body and how people perceive and operate it. Materials determine not only durability and performance, but also how something feels against the skin, flexes with movement, or responds over time. Mechanisms dictate the force required to operate a product; manufacturing processes determine which solutions are possible at scale; and UX considers how all of these physical decisions come together in the user’s interaction with the product.

Empathy is not a separate step that happens before the “real” design work begins. It is an ongoing mindset that informs the specifications, constraints, materials, mechanisms, and decisions that make up that work. The designer listens to an experience, investigates the underlying need, and translates it into something that can be designed, prototyped, tested, and refined.

Designing Through Observation and Iteration

Understanding people requires more than asking what they want. People are often very good at describing an experience—“this feels awkward,” “I don’t know how to use this,” “I wish this were easier”—but they may not know exactly why something isn’t working. They may also adapt to a product’s shortcomings so completely that the behavior no longer feels worth mentioning, or know a topic so deeply that they wouldn’t think to mention details that seem foundational and obvious to them.

Observation can reveal what conversation misses. A user may repeatedly adjust a strap without realizing it, develop a workaround for a difficult closure, hesitate before performing an unfamiliar action, or move their body in an unexpected way to accommodate a product. These small behaviors can be more revealing than a direct answer because they show what people actually do rather than what they remember doing or believe they do.

For designers, this means paying attention to behavior as much as opinion. Contextual research, interviews, hands-on testing, and observation can help uncover the conditions surrounding an interaction: where a product is being used, what the person is doing at the same time, what they instinctively reach for, and where they encounter friction. We don’t assume that users can articulate the solution, but try to create a holistic picture of their experience so we can design for it.

Worker wearing a high-visibility Project Firefly workwear garment with reflective material across the back and sleeves — Project Firefly explored reflective workwear designed around worker movement, visibility, comfort, and durability.

Physical interaction becomes particularly valuable when a product has to work with the body. A rendering can communicate form, but it cannot fully communicate pressure, weight, reach, grip, movement, or the way a material responds as someone wears it. A prototype can. Once someone physically interacts with a product, assumptions that seemed reasonable on screen can quickly become visible—and sometimes the design needs to change substantially as a result. Project Firefly, developed with Red Kap, offers a clear example of how observation can reshape a design problem. Rather than looking only at the garment itself, the Interwoven team studied how workers moved in the environments where Type O workwear is used, observing common movements, abrasion, soiling, comfort, and mobility. The team also visited industrial laundry facilities to understand how garments were actually cared for and maintained. These observations, combined with research into reflective materials and their performance, informed the development and testing of new garment concepts designed to improve mobility and comfort while increasing durability and extending the garment’s lifespan.

A designer’s first interpretation of a user’s needs will rarely be perfect. Instead of treating the first concept as an answer, prototyping creates a continuous loop: design, experience, observe, learn, refine. Each iteration provides another opportunity to compare what we expected to happen with what actually happened. We aren’t just asking, Did we get it right? We’re asking, What did we misunderstand? What surprised us? Where did the user’s behavior differ from our expectations? The body often tells us something the user can’t articulate.

Designing for Bodies That Aren’t Our Own

Designers inevitably bring their own bodies into the design process. We reach for a product, put it on, operate it, and make judgments based on what we see and feel. Our own experiences provide a useful starting point, but they can also become an invisible reference point for what we consider comfortable, intuitive, or easy to use. The people we design for rarely share exactly the same set of physical characteristics or abilities. Products may need to accommodate differences in size and proportion, age, mobility, strength, dexterity, and sensory ability. They may also need to account for pain, injury, or physical limitations that are not immediately visible.

This is particularly important when a product interacts directly with the body. A medical brace, adaptive garment, wearable device, or performance product cannot simply be designed around a static model of the human form. Bodies move. Dimensions change with posture and activity. Pressure that feels negligible while standing may become uncomfortable when sitting. A closure that seems effortless to one user may require significant strength or dexterity from someone else.

Soft goods make these challenges especially apparent. Unlike a rigid product, a garment or wearable system has to negotiate a constantly changing surface. Its success depends not only on its individual components, but on how those components behave together as the body moves through space. Ergonomic research, observation, physical testing, and working directly with users are strategies designers use to expose assumptions that are difficult to identify from a desk or CAD screen. A designer might assume a particular adjustment is intuitive until someone struggles to reach it, or believe a product feels secure until testing reveals that it shifts during a specific movement. The goal is not simply to collect feedback, but to uncover the physical realities that should shape the design itself.

Woman using one hand to fasten the magnetic front clasp of an Even Adaptive bra — Even Adaptive lingerie uses an accessible magnetic front clasp designed for easier one-handed dressing.

For us at Interwoven Design, this perspective is relevant across medical devices, adaptive apparel, wearable technology, and performance garments. These products have to perform within the complexity of real human bodies, accommodating movement, varying physical needs, and prolonged interaction rather than a single moment of use. Our lingerie design for Even Adaptive illustrates how designing for a specific physical need can lead to a more thoughtful product overall. Interwoven developed the lingerie around the needs of women who may need to dress using one hand, rethinking both the garment and its closure system rather than simply adapting an existing bra. Prototypes of different magnetic clasps were tested for engagement force, durability, comfort, and ease of single-hand operation, ultimately leading to the development of finger loops that make the fastening easier to manipulate. The garment itself was also redesigned around accessibility, with front-adjustable straps and construction that supports easier reach and use. The result was a product designed around a wider range of bodies and abilities without sacrificing comfort, aesthetics, or the experience of wearing beautiful lingerie.

Designing for difference does not mean creating a separate solution for every possible user. It means questioning the assumptions built into the original solution and designing enough flexibility, adjustability, and consideration into the product to serve a target range of people. Often, the result is simply a better product. Features developed to help someone with limited dexterity can make a product easier for anyone to operate. Greater adjustability can improve fit across a wider range of bodies. Reduced pressure or weight can make a wearable more comfortable for everyone over a longer period of time. Designing for difference often produces better products for everyone.

When Empathy Meets AI

As AI becomes more integrated into the design process, it offers new ways to work with information. Designers can use it to generate concepts, synthesize research, explore variations, create visualizations, and identify patterns across large datasets. Used well, these tools can help designers process more information and explore more possibilities in less time. That said, there is an important distinction between having more information about people and understanding people. AI can summarize what users have said about a product, but it cannot experience the frustration of struggling with a clasp, and it can’t observe the physical awkwardness of moving in a garment that does not fit as intended. Those experiences still have to come from people.

It’s also a double edged sword. The same technology that makes research more efficient could also make it easier to simulate those interactions instead: generating personas, synthetic user quotes, or generalized assumptions about what a particular demographic wants. The result can look like empathy without being grounded in anyone’s actual experience. The distinction matters because empathy is not simply the ability to produce a convincing description of another person’s perspective. It requires designers to remain curious about what they might be missing. AI can help surface patterns, identify gaps in research, suggest questions, and accelerate the exploration of solutions, but designers still have to decide which questions matter, whose voices are missing, and whether a proposed solution actually works for the person who will use it. It cannot replace the human experience that empathy depends upon.

Empathy as Design Practice

Design is an act of translation: taking human needs, behaviors, limitations, and aspirations and turning them into physical and experiential realities. Empathy helps us make that translation accurately. It does not sit apart from engineering, ergonomics, aesthetics, or manufacturing, but is embedded in the decisions that connect them; the form of a product, the material against the skin, the fit across different bodies, the force required to operate a mechanism, the accessibility of an interaction, or the way something can be manufactured and used over time.

AI will undoubtedly change how designers make those decisions. As our tools become increasingly capable of generating concepts, processing information, and exploring solutions, however, understanding who we are designing for becomes even more important. When the number of possible solutions expands, the ability to identify the right problem—and understand the human experience behind it—becomes a critical part of design judgment.

This is why human-centered research, engineering, soft goods expertise, prototyping, and iterative testing are deeply interconnected here at Interwoven Design. The goal is not simply to create products that function, but products that function for real people, in real contexts, over time. We embed empathy into everything we make, resulting in a product that fits better, moves more naturally, requires less effort, or simply makes someone’s day a little easier.

Interwoven Design is a design consultancy that is positioned at the intersection of soft goods and wearable technology, creating products that function with the body and offer comfort as well as the superb performance that arises through the innovative incorporation of rigid, often electronic and responsive elements. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for design news, multi-media recommendations, and to learn more about product design and development!

A Q&A with Chamille Thayer, Industrial Designer and Educator: Navigating Empathetic Engineering and Industrial Realities

Spotlight articles shine a light on designers, engineers, researchers, and creative thinkers we admire and the ideas shaping design today.

Chamille Thayer, industrial design educator at Pratt Institute and design engineer with over a decade of experience in corporate R&D

This month, we’re turning to industrial design education and practice with a provocative question: How do we balance human empathy, technical rigor, and the massive economic forces of mass production?

We spoke with Chamille Thayer, industrial design educator at Pratt Institute and seasoned design engineer with over a decade in corporate R&D at Estée Lauder. Chamille brings the seasoned perspective of an active practitioner and relentless advocate for manufacturability to the classroom.

Our conversation ranged from the delicate balance between physical needs and emotional wants to the hidden corporate politics behind industrial manufacturing. We talked about how digital tools and AI affect tactile intuition, why true empathy requires personal vulnerability, and what it really takes to navigate “industrial realities” without losing a product’s soul.

Q:

You’ve engineered products that meet physical needs, like mobility aids, as well as products for emotional wants, like beauty products. Does empathy for a “need” require a different instinct than empathy for a “want”?

A:

It’s a question of the magnitude of the imperative. Designing to satisfy an unmet, foundational need, like a walker that allows someone to ambulate without assistance, is where we start. Without that product, the person cannot walk without assistance. The need is met once the product exists.

When a landscape of products already satisfies that core need, design shifts toward “wants”: styling, single-handed folding, or extra storage. We’re obliged to encompass a broader set of user wants to distinguish a product in the marketplace.

The designer sits at the hub of the wheel, and the spokes of obligation reach out to manufacturing, marketing, regulatory agencies, the user, and the environment. All of those need to be satisfied and synthesized in the center by the designer. While there’s an opportunity for designers to add a piece of themselves, I tell my students that should be the last five percent of the solution. Design is like Thanksgiving dinner: you make sure every single guest is completely full and satisfied before you make a plate for yourself.

Q:

What is a memorable design “failure” that taught you a hard lesson about human behavior and empathy?

A:

Technical line drawings from U.S. Patent 6,295,994 B1 issued October 2, 2001, displaying cross-sectional mechanical diagrams (Figures 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, and 29) of a flexible applicator design. — Technical patent drawing (US 6,295,994 B1) illustrating structural mechanics, flexible cross-sections, and ergonomic detailing for an innovative applicator design.

In research and development at Estée Lauder, over 90% of what we invented never made it to market. But one specific lipstick mechanism project stands out. We designed a propel-repel mechanism that reduced manufacturing costs from $0.27 to $0.17 per unit. When a company gives away 50 million units a year as gift-with-purchase, saving a dime per unit is a massive $5 million cost saving.

I worked for five years on that project, qualifying tooling, solving engineering hurdles, traveling back and forth to France, and testing filling lines. When we finally had a viable product, purchasing went back to our primary supplier, who had just invested $4 million automating their existing assembly line, and demanded an 8 cent price drop on their existing case, threatening to switch to our new design. The supplier folded and dropped their price.

Our product never launched. The company got the cost savings using our innovation as a bargaining chip, but our technology was shelved. The lesson? The magnitude of economic realities at an industrial scale is an unstoppable force. It’s not the polite suggestion of economics, it’s the law of economics. Products must be economically sustainable within the actual systems that build them.

Q:

Engineers often get a bad rap for focusing on specs over empathy. As a designer with strong mechanical savvy, how do you bridge that gap when working alongside them?

A:

An industrial designer must be a competent engineer conceptually. Engineers are constantly looking for the less expensive, more efficient solution. If you want a rectangular volume, an engineer might prefer 45 degrees of draft so it pops out of the mold instantly and stacks easily. But now you have a trapezoid, not a rectangle.

To bridge that gap, you need baseline credibility. Go to the manufacturer with a great technical drawing. A clean, accurate drawing gives you instantaneous credibility: it proves you know what you’re talking about and that your request is reasonable.

From there, pick your fights. You can’t fight across the entire landscape of a product. Understand your hierarchy of what actually matters. I once designed a mascara brush that used a threaded stainless steel spring to bypass a competitor’s patent. I arbitrarily set a microscopic tolerance without realizing how hard it was for manufacturing engineers to hold. Instead of telling me, they put workers on the line manually inspecting and turning every piece, which blew up our costs. You have to know what is worth fighting for and where you can yield so engineers trust you when it counts.

Q:

You’re known for being tough and exacting about manufacturability. Does a concept usually lose some of its freshness by the time it survives the engineering and manufacturing process?

A:

Absolutely. There is a dream of the product, and you have to understand what is at the heart of that dream. Students often struggle because they have three good ideas and are convinced their product should do all three, when really, those should be three separate products.

When you’re designing something and planning multiple innovations, you have to be clear: if you can only keep three, what are they? If you can only keep two? If you can only keep one, what is the single thing this product has to do? Constraints are real. Everyone has a dream, but if you can’t propose a realistic path to execution, you don’t actually have a design. That’s the difference between fiction and design.

Q:

In prosthetics and body-adjacent devices, what’s a mechanical decision that seems purely technical on paper but actually changes how someone feels about their own body?

A:

In the realm of seen objects, nothing is a purely mechanical choice. Psychology and identity are embedded in everything, especially when amending a human body.

Some people want a prosthetic arm that is completely indistinguishable from their natural arm; others want an aesthetic that has no visual relationship to a human limb at all. I personally believe there is far too much styling masquerading as design intended to disguise or hide the truth of what an object is.

Look at 1930s car engines: the carburetors were polished, the wire arrangements were minimalist and artful, and every functional element was beautifully composed. Today, engines are hidden under a molded piece of plastic that mimics a valve cover to disguise an engineering mess of wires and hoses underneath. Conversely, look at custom gaming PCs: people build liquid-cooled systems with transparent cases and backlighting, celebrating function as art. We should be celebrating the possibilities of beauty in functional mechanics rather than hiding them under shrouds.

Q:

How do you teach students to step outside their own body and habits when designing for someone whose needs or wants are completely different from their own?

A:

You can’t teach it in a vacuum. You have to get the student in direct contact with a real user, and they have to be willing to be wrong. Being wrong often is an absolute prerequisite for good design.

I had a student who wanted to design a prosthetic hand for a musician. He tracked down a professional drummer in California who had lost his hand in a fireworks accident. They collaborated all semester, measuring the residual limb remotely and refining the mechanism. At the end of the term, the drummer flew out to Pratt with his drum kit, tried on the custom prosthetic, and was able to execute drumming techniques he couldn’t perform with his commercial device.

Good designers find real users, talk to them directly, and stay open to having their assumptions shattered.

Q:

When a project is completely foreign to your own experience, how do you summon empathy for that user?

A:

3D CAD visualization showing a fully assembled white and grey ergonomic hand-held spectrophotometer alongside an exploded assembly view revealing internal PCBs, battery, optics module, display bezel, and housing architecture. — Ergonomic design and internal engineering layout for Datacolor’s hand-held spectrophotometer, featuring a self-adjusting optical read head and balanced housing for precise industrial color measurement.

Firsthand, un-curated observation is essential. The designer has to walk out of the office and observe the world directly.

If you want to understand the problems of subway stairs, go sit in the subway for an afternoon every day for a week. Watch someone try to navigate the stairs with a baby carriage, a laundry cart, and a musical instrument. Watch a street vendor set up their table and realize it takes them two hours to set up, two hours to tear down, and an hour of travel each way: that’s six hours of logistics before an eight-hour workday.

Once you observe that 14-hour day, you realize that streamlining their setup could radically improve their life. Ethnographic research, direct observation, and speculative narrative (constructing narrative stories about why someone needs an object) are the foundational skills of empathy.

Q:

If a designer is looking to become genuinely more empathetic in their practice, what are some personal habits or inner work they need to do?

A:

Real empathy starts by understanding your own feelings: your own joy, your own failures, and your own ego. You can’t ignore empathy in your personal life and then simply turn it on as a designer when you walk into the studio. That isn’t empathy; at best, it’s sympathy, which is just feeling bad for someone rather than sharing what they feel.

Design is an intensely mental exercise deeply attached to our own ego and fear of failure. If you are bound by your reputation or fear of looking foolish, you cannot design freely or connect authentically with others. The centeredness and self-awareness you cultivate as a person directly dictate your freedom and capacity as a designer.

Q:

You introduced 3D CAD and digital fabrication to Pratt in the late ’90s. Now that digital workflows move even faster, do young designers still understand materials and physics as intuitively as they used to?

A:

A collection of 3D computer-rendered metallic and silver product designs, including cosmetic compacts, squeeze tubes, aerosol spray cans, and ergonomic personal care packaging resting on a light neutral surface. — Product design exploration and 3D concept renders showcasing sleek metallic packaging and ergonomic forms developed by industrial designer Chamille Thayer.

In the early days, digital tools freed us from an unhealthy emotional attachment to physical artifacts. If you spent six hours hand-sanding a mahogany model and a professor told you to make it 10% larger, you were crushed because you couldn’t just add wood back. Digital output allowed us to iterate without that emotional paralysis.

Today, 3D printing is so ubiquitous that we see the opposite problem: zero physical investment and a loss of unconscious, intuitive decision-making. When you bend a wire with pliers, your eye measures the curve, your hands feel the tension, and you make dozens of sophisticated aesthetic choices without calculating an exact 26.7° angle.

In CAD, a user spends 30% to 50% of their cognitive energy managing the logistics of the software rather than exploring the idea. When you hold a pencil, you’re 98% in the idea. Digital tools offer a faster, less time-consuming path, but often, it becomes a faster path to poorer ideas.

Q:

With AI tools becoming more prevalent in the studio, how will this affect the role of empathy in design and our ability to understand users?

A:

AI is a useful tool, but it has zero empathy: it has statistical probability.

When we encourage AI to lead, we do poorly. Asking AI what should exist or what people care about is a terrible plan. However, if you have designed six handle concepts and ask AI to analyze similar existing forms in the sports product market, that is a great use case.

Design is the experience of self in the world, and it’s the source of my greatest joy. Why delegate that to a bot? I need to catch my own mouse; I don’t want the cat’s mouse. Use technology as an accessory, but do the heavy lifting yourself. Go hunting for your own insights.

–

Check out the rest of our Spotlight series to hear more from leaders in the design industry. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for design news, multi-media recommendations, and to learn more about product design and development!

A Q&A with Roger Schmitz, Founder of Moxy Monitor

Rethinking athlete performance through muscle oxygen data

Spotlight articles shine a light on designers and engineers we admire, asking leaders in the field about their work and their creative journey. Roger Schmitz, founder and CEO of Moxy Monitor, has spent more than a decade doing exactly that. A mechanical engineer by training, Schmitz developed a wearable sensor that measures muscle oxygen saturation using near-infrared spectroscopy. The technology gives athletes, coaches, and performance scientists direct insight into how muscles are working under load.

Photo of Roger Schmitz — Roger Schmitz, Founder and CEO of Moxy Monitor

Originally inspired by medical device research, Moxy has become a powerful tool for endurance athletes, professional teams, and researchers studying human performance.

More recently, Schmitz partnered with Interwoven Design Group to solve a particularly difficult challenge: how to integrate a precision sensor into athletic apparel in a way that is reliable, comfortable, and almost invisible to the athlete wearing it.

We spoke with Roger about the origins of Moxy, what muscle oxygen reveals that other metrics miss, and what happens when engineers and designers collaborate to solve hard problems.

Q:

Could you start by telling us about yourself and the story behind Moxy?

A:

My name is Roger Schmitz. I’m the CEO and founder of Moxy Monitor, and I developed the technology that takes muscle oxygen measurements and allows us to do it accurately.

My background is in engineering—I’m a mechanical engineer by training. I worked in the disc drive industry for a while and later in medical devices. Around that time I was working with near-infrared spectroscopy, which is the core technology behind Moxy.

Those devices were large benchtop systems used for trauma patients. They had cables running to the patient and cost about $15,000. After that company failed and I was laid off, I started thinking about how to make the technology much smaller, more accurate, and dramatically less expensive.

The idea was to create a wearable, battery-powered device that cost under $1,000. I originally thought it would become a medical device, but a cardiologist I met with said something that changed everything. He said, “You should make it for athletes. The regulatory burden will be dramatically smaller.”

That’s what we did. And interestingly, a lot of researchers still buy the device today and use it to study heart failure—just not in a clinical setting.

Q:

We often hear about metrics like heart rate, GPS tracking, or power output. What does muscle oxygen reveal that those metrics don’t?

A:

Athlete wearing Moxy Monitor sensor during field performance testing — Moxy Monitor sensor placed on the thigh to measure muscle oxygen during activity.

Those metrics can be divided into two categories: external load and internal load.

External load is how much work the body is doing—things like GPS speed or power meters. Internal load is how hard the body has to work to produce that output.

Heart rate is one measure of internal load, but it has limitations. It responds slowly to changes in effort and it’s influenced by a lot of other factors.

Muscle oxygen is different because it reacts immediately. When you change the load, we see a change in muscle oxygen right away. We’re measuring what’s happening in the muscle in real time. That makes it incredibly useful for adjusting training intensity.

It becomes another tool athletes and coaches can use to understand what’s really happening inside the body based on those deeper insights.

Q:

So athletes and coaches can see that data in real time?

A:

Yes. The data can show up directly on a GPS watch for endurance athletes—we integrate well with Garmin. For team sports we connect with systems like WIMU GPS.

That means trainers or performance staff can monitor muscle oxygen while athletes are actually playing on the pitch. They can watch the data live on the sideline and even monitor the entire team.

It gives them a lot more information than they’ve traditionally had.

Q:

How do coaches actually use that information in training?

A:

Exploded view diagram of Moxy Monitor sensor showing internal components including circuit board, battery, antenna, and optical sensors — Exploded view of the Moxy Monitor sensor showing its internal components.

One example comes from a professional soccer team in Germany. During practice they alternate between small-sided games—maybe four-on-four—and full-team play. They assumed the full-team drills were more demanding.

But when they looked at the muscle oxygen data they saw that the short-sided play was actually creating more physiological load because of the constant quick bursts of action. It wasn’t showing up in heart rate, but it showed up clearly in the muscle oxygen data.

So they adjusted their training and backed off those drills slightly to avoid overloading the athletes.

Q:

Has Moxy ever contradicted what a coach believed about a player?

A:

Yes, we see that fairly often.

One example involved a professional triathlete who had two bikes—a road bike and a time-trial bike. She kept telling her coach she couldn’t produce the same power on one of them.

The coach initially thought she just needed to get used to the bike. But when they compared the Moxy data between the two bikes, the readings were dramatically different.

At that point the coach said, “This isn’t just in your head—this is a physiologic difference.”

They made some adjustments to the bike fit and her performance improved significantly.

Having objective data can validate what the athlete is feeling.

Q:

Performance staff in elite sports are very data-savvy—but also skeptical of new technology. How did you earn their trust?

A:

That’s a great observation. People approach them with gadgets all the time.

Our approach has been to work closely with both the research community and the high-performance sport community.

Moxy has now been used in hundreds of scientific studies, and those results get published in peer-reviewed journals. Early on people would say the device was too inexpensive to be credible—they assumed it must be a toy.

But as more researchers began publishing results, perceptions changed.

We also host a Moxy Summit, where our power users present how they’re using the technology with athletes. It’s about half researchers and half high-performance sports practitioners.

The key is consistency. Don’t overpromise. Stick to what the science supports.

Over time people start to realize the technology is legitimate.

Q:

With global events like the World Cup, where every performance detail matters, how does muscle oxygen data help teams prepare?

A:

Teams often conduct physiological testing in the lab—treadmill tests, breath analysis, lactate measurements.

The challenge is that you can’t do those tests during an actual match.

But you can measure muscle oxygen on the field. So teams can translate what they learned in the lab to real game situations.

They might know that a certain athlete can sustain a given workload for ninety minutes, while another athlete might only sustain it for sixty or seventy.

At that level, everyone is already operating near their limits. You’re not making huge changes—just small adjustments.

But those small tweaks can be the difference between winning and losing.

Q:

Moxy started in endurance sports. Where else are you seeing it used?

A:

Triathlon probably has the most users because the training is so intense and athletes need careful control of their effort.

Cycling is another big area because we integrate with many data systems already used by cyclists.

We’re also starting to see more use in running and swimming. Swimming is particularly interesting because there’s very little physiological data available when athletes are underwater.

Team sports are expanding too—soccer, hockey, and others—especially as we integrate with GPS systems used by teams.

And there are applications in strength training as well, where coaches want to understand how specific muscles are being loaded.

Q:

Wearables take a beating in contact sports. What was the biggest challenge in making Moxy work on the field cycle?

Athlete placing a Moxy Monitor sensor into a custom wearable ring on the thigh — Moxy Monitor wearable system designed by Interwoven Design Group.

A:

Attachment.
We could get the sensor to stay on, but it required tape, wraps, and a lot of effort from trainers. That’s not practical for daily use.

The breakthrough needed to be something that athletes could put on themselves so the sensor
would essentially disappear into the process of getting dressed. The thigh is a very difficult place to locate a sensor. There’s sweat, extreme movement, cutting, sprinting—it’s a tough environment.

We also discovered that muscle placement varies between athletes, so we needed a solution that allowed customized positioning.

Q:

That challenge is what led you to collaborate with Interwoven. What motivated that partnership?

A:

First of all, this is a really hard problem. It seems simple, but we’ve worked on it for ten years.

What motivated the contact with Interwoven was the need for a solution for soccer—something that worked at a team scale. Trainers needed to set the optimal location, but after that the athlete had to be able to place the sensor themselves.

It also needed to be rugged, durable, and easy to use.

To be honest, I was skeptical it was even possible. We had tried so many things already.

But it was a problem we needed to solve.

Q:

What has the feedback been on the design Interwoven developed?

Design iterations of Moxy Monitor sensor light shield and mounting ring components — Design iterations of the Moxy Monitor light shield and ring system developed by Interwoven Design Group.

A:

When people see it, they pause for a moment. You can see the gears turning.

They look at it and say, “That is really good.”

A good design always looks easy in the end. It looks obvious—like of course that’s how it should work.

But it wasn’t obvious before. That’s the hallmark of great design. It looks simple, but getting there is not simple at all.

Q:

Engineers and designers don’t always speak the same language. What did you learn from working with Interwoven?

A:

One thing that stood out was that Interwoven had a system for arriving at creative solutions.

It wasn’t luck. There was a structured method for working through the problem.

I remember coming to the studio for a design session that lasted several hours. At one point I thought we might not get there—but the team kept working through the process.

Eventually the solution emerged.

As an engineer, I tend to focus heavily on functional requirements: the sensor has to stay in place, the data has to be accurate.

But there are other equally important needs—ease of use, adaptability, and even aesthetics.

These athletes earn millions of dollars. They wear expensive gear and jewelry. The product has to look good as well as function well.

Interwoven kept the entire picture in mind. If a product doesn’t meet all of those needs, it isn’t viable.

That was a really valuable part of the collaboration.

Final Thoughts

From laboratory technology to elite sports performance, Moxy Monitor represents a new way of understanding the body under load. By measuring muscle oxygen directly, athletes and coaches gain a window into physiology that traditional metrics often miss.

For Roger Schmitz, the journey has been one of constant iteration—engineering breakthroughs, scientific validation, and collaboration across disciplines.

And as wearable technology continues to evolve, the partnership between engineers, researchers, and designers will remain essential to turning complex ideas into tools athletes can use every day.

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Please reach out!

Soft Goods in Athletics: Designing for Performance

Athletics place unique demands on the body. From training and competition to recovery and everyday wear, athletes rely on products that support movement, regulate the body, and perform under constant stress. Unlike casual apparel, athletic soft goods must respond dynamically to speed, impact, repetition, and fatigue, often across long durations and varied environments. Soft goods are foundational to this ecosystem. Apparel, supports, accessories, and hybrid soft–hard systems sit directly against the body, shaping how athletes move, feel, and perform. When designed well, they enhance mobility, manage heat and moisture, reduce distraction, and support confidence. When designed poorly, they restrict movement, cause irritation, or interfere with performance.

At Interwoven Design, we specialize in soft goods that move with the body. Our work in athletics combines textile innovation, ergonomics, and human-centered design to create performance-driven products that feel intuitive in motion. By designing for real bodies in real athletic contexts, we help brands create products that support both peak performance and long-term use.

In this Insight article, we explore what makes athletic soft goods design distinct, the challenges and opportunities within this space, and how thoughtful design can elevate performance, comfort, and user experience. Through examples from across the athletic landscape, we highlight how soft goods function as essential infrastructure for modern sport.

When Apparel Becomes Equipment

Athletic soft goods operate in a fundamentally different context than lifestyle apparel or fashion-driven performance wear. These products are not designed for occasional movement or visual expression alone; they are worn through repetition, strain, sweat, and fatigue. They must perform reliably under physical stress, often for hours at a time, and across a wide range of environments and body types. Designing for athletics means designing for use, not appearance first.

Unlike everyday apparel, athletic soft goods are in constant dialogue with the body. They stretch, compress, resist, and recover in response to motion. A poorly placed seam can cause chafing. Excess material can disrupt movement or trap heat. Insufficient structure can compromise stability and lead to injury.In this context, comfort is not a luxury, it is a performance requirement.

Athletic products must also account for intensity and repetition. Runners log thousands of steps per session. Training garments endure repeated washing, abrasion, and exposure to sweat and friction. Soft goods must maintain their integrity and fit over time, not just during initial wear. This demands careful material selection, durable construction methods, and patterning that supports long-term use without breakdown.

There is also a psychological dimension to athletic soft goods. When equipment fits well and moves naturally with the body, it fades into the background, allowing athletes to focus fully on performance. When it doesn’t, it becomes a distraction. Confidence, trust, and mental clarity are directly influenced by how gear feels in motion. The best athletic soft goods support not only physical performance, but also the athlete’s sense of readiness and control. They must earn their place through performance: working with the body, adapting to motion, and standing up to the realities of athletic use.

Designing for the Body in Constant Motion

In athletics, soft goods are not passive layers. They are active interfaces between the body, the environment, and performance demands. From training apparel and compression systems to protective gear and integrated wearables, these products must move dynamically with the athlete while maintaining structure, control, and comfort under stress. Designing for this context requires a deep understanding of the body in motion and the realities of how athletic products are actually used.

Designing for Dynamic Movement

Athletic soft goods must accommodate complex, repetitive movement patterns: sprinting, cutting, rotating, reaching, absorbing impact, and recovering between efforts. Unlike everyday apparel, these products are subjected to continuous mechanical stress, sweat, heat buildup, and friction. Seams, stretch zones, and reinforcement areas must be placed with intention, aligning with muscle groups, joints, and patterns of load. Poorly placed construction details can restrict movement, cause chafing, or create pressure points that distract from performance.

Effective design begins with understanding how the body behaves under exertion. This includes how muscles expand and contract, how posture shifts during fatigue, and how movement changes across different intensities. Soft goods that perform well in athletics are designed not just for a static fit, but for how they stretch, compress, and recover throughout an entire training session or match. They are also tailored to the specific movements that are unique to a given sport or activity.

Balancing Support and Freedom

One of the central challenges in athletic soft goods design is balancing support with mobility. Athletes often need targeted compression, stabilization, or protection without sacrificing range of motion or speed. This balance is achieved through thoughtful material zoning and construction strategies rather than relying on bulk or rigidity.

Strategic use of elastic and non-elastic materials can provide structure where it is needed and flexibility where it is essential. Paneling, knit variation, and layered systems allow designers to fine-tune how a product behaves across different areas of the body. When executed well, this approach creates products that feel secure without feeling restrictive, enabling athletes to move confidently and naturally.

Comfort as a Performance Factor

In athletic contexts, comfort is inseparable from performance. Heat retention, moisture management, and skin interaction all influence endurance, focus, and recovery. Fabrics must manage sweat efficiently, dry quickly, and maintain a consistent feel against the skin even during prolonged use. Construction details such as bindings, hems, and closures must remain stable under movement without digging in or shifting.

Extended wear is common in athletics, whether during long training sessions, tournaments, or back-to-back competitions. Soft goods that cause irritation or distraction can negatively affect performance long before physical fatigue sets in. Designing for comfort means anticipating these long-duration use cases and prioritizing material behavior and construction quality at every point of contact with the body.

Iteration Through Real-World Testing

Designing for athletic performance demands rigorous, real-world testing. Prototypes must be worn, trained in, and stressed in the environments they are intended for. Observing how products shift, stretch, retain shape, or fail under real movement reveals critical insights that inform refinement. his iterative process is central to how we approach athletic soft goods at Interwoven Design. By evaluating products in motion and under load, we identify opportunities to improve durability, comfort, and performance, ensuring that the final design supports the athlete rather than working against them.

Designing for the body in motion means respecting the physical realities of athletic performance. While the challenges are significant, they also represent meaningful opportunities for innovation. Well-designed athletic soft goods can improve performance, reduce injury risk, enhance comfort, and build stronger emotional connections between athletes and their gear. Products that perform reliably over time earn trust, becoming essential parts of an athlete’s training and competition routine.

Case Studies: Design for Athletics in Action

Performance apparel and wearable systems are shaped by how athletes move, train, and compete across varying conditions and levels of intensity. The following case studies highlight Interwoven Design’s approach to athletic soft goods, showcasing how thoughtful material selection, ergonomic construction, and brand-driven design come together to support performance, comfort, and identity on and off the field.

Case Study 1: GLDN PNT Padelwear

Premium activewear brand GLDN PNT partnered with Interwoven Design to create their first men’s and women’s padelwear collections, launching a brand built specifically around the movement patterns, performance needs, and aesthetic expectations of the sport. As the sport of padel continues to grow globally, athletes are demanding apparel that reflects the intensity, precision, and social culture of the game.

Unlike crossover tennis or general training apparel, padel requires clothing that supports rapid lateral movement, extended rallies, sun exposure, and frequent ball handling. GLDN PNT’s goal was to introduce a collection that felt intentional, elevated, and authentic to padel, while establishing a strong visual identity that could scale with the brand.

GLDN PNT - Photo by Ton Gomes — GLDN PNT – Photo by Ton Gomes

The Design Challenge

Padel occupies a distinct space between tennis and squash, with its own cadence, court dynamics, and player culture. However, the apparel market had yet to fully reflect those differences. The challenge was twofold: to design sport-specific garments that performed under the physical demands of padel, and to simultaneously define a cohesive brand language that would differentiate GLDN PNT in a growing, style-conscious market.

From a performance standpoint, garments needed to support explosive movement, sustained play, and outdoor conditions without compromising comfort or fit. From a brand perspective, the collection had to feel modern and premium, appealing to both competitive players and lifestyle-driven athletes who engage with padel as a social sport.

Our Approach

Interwoven Design led a comprehensive, end-to-end design process that integrated brand strategy, soft goods expertise, and technical apparel development. The project began with identifying market gaps and analyzing both competitive sportswear and emerging padel culture. Through trend research, event observation, and consumer insight, Interwoven Design established a clear design direction for the GLDN PNT brand. Mood boards and color stories were developed to define the collection’s tone, ensuring visual cohesion across men’s and women’s lines. Silhouette development focused on balancing clean, contemporary styling with functional performance, resulting in a capsule collection that included athletic tanks, t-shirts, shorts, skirts, and complementary accessories.

As always, material selection played a central role in the design. Drawing from an extensive textile library and industry partnerships, Interwoven Design sourced high-performance fabrics selected for stretch, breathability, durability, and sun protection. Each fabric choice was evaluated not only for performance, but for how it contributed to the overall brand feel and on-court presence.

Branding and Visual Integration

Beyond garment design, Interwoven developed GLDN PNT’s branding system across apparel and accessories. This included custom graphics, reflective heat-seal logos, embroidered elements for visors and hats, and garment labels. Each branding element was strategically placed to enhance visibility and identity without interfering with performance or comfort. The result is a cohesive visual language that reinforces GLDN PNT’s positioning as a premium padel brand while remaining functional on the court.

Impact

Launched in June 2024, the GLDN PNT padelwear collection established a strong foundation for the brand, delivering sport-specific performance apparel with a distinct identity. By designing soft goods that respond directly to the physical demands and cultural nuances of padel, Interwoven helped GLDN PNT enter the market with clarity, confidence, and credibility.

Case Study 2: Miami Dolphins Cheerleader Uniforms

Miami Dolphins cheerleaders performing on the field wearing team performance uniforms — Miami Dolphins – Photo by Miami Dolphins Cheer

Elite cheerleading sits at the intersection of athletic performance, visual precision, and public-facing brand representation. The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders partnered with Interwoven Design Group to modernize their uniforms and practice apparel, with the goal of creating performance-driven soft goods that support high-energy routines while empowering individual expression within a cohesive team identity.

Interwoven Design was commissioned to redesign the on-field uniforms, practice apparel, and a complementary cheer sneaker, elevating the cheerleaders’ wardrobe to reflect their dual roles as professional athletes and ambassadors for the Miami Dolphins organization. The project emphasized comfort, functionality, and confidence, ensuring that each garment

performed under physical intensity while presenting a polished, contemporary aesthetic on and off the field.

The Design Challenge

Cheerleading places exceptional demands on apparel. Garments must support explosive movement, jumps, lifts, and sustained choreography under stadium lights, heat, and long performance durations. At the same time, cheer uniforms are highly visible, serving as a key expression of team identity and brand values.

The challenge was to design a system of soft goods that could withstand athletic rigor without restricting movement, manage heat and perspiration, and maintain visual consistency across the team. Equally important was creating a wardrobe that allowed cheerleaders agency over their appearance, enabling personalization while preserving a unified, professional look.

Our Approach

Interwoven Design approached the project as a modular performance system rather than a single uniform. The design process began with direct engagement with the cheerleaders, gathering insight into their preferences, pain points, and performance requirements. This collaborative approach ensured that the final collection responded to real athletic needs rather than surface-level aesthetics alone. The concept of a “cheer closet” guided the development of a capsule collection composed of nine core silhouettes designed to be mixed and matched by individual team members. These included a crop top, sports bras, unitard, track jacket, skirt, leggings, and boy shorts, offered in a range of Miami Dolphins–branded colorways.

This system-based approach allowed each cheerleader to select combinations that best suited her body, role, and performance needs while maintaining visual cohesion across the squad. Soft goods design focused on creating garments that moved seamlessly with the body, supported dynamic routines, and felt comfortable throughout long rehearsals, games, and appearances.

Engineered for Movement and Durability

Material selection was central to the success of the collection, and a particular challenge here. Interwoven sourced a breathable, moisture-wicking performance fabric engineered to resist visible color changes from perspiration, ensuring the uniforms maintained a fresh, polished appearance even during high-intensity routines. Strategically placed perforated textiles enhanced ventilation while adding subtle textural detail to the garments.

Athletic construction techniques were used throughout, incorporating internal support features and carefully engineered paneling to improve fit, stability, and comfort. These decisions allowed the garments to support demanding choreography without restricting range of motion or causing distraction during performance.

Impact

The final uniform and practice collection successfully unified performance and style, delivering soft goods that support athletic excellence while reinforcing brand identity. The “cheer closet” model gives team members agency and confidence, allowing them to personalize their look while presenting a consistent, elevated image as a squad.

A complementary makeup kit was also designed to align with the apparel color strategy, enabling a cohesive head-to-toe presentation for games, practices, and appearances. Together, the system underscores the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders’ role as elite athletes and public representatives of the organization.

Supporting Movement, Comfort, and Confidence

Athletics is defined by movement, repetition, and intensity. Every sprint, pivot, jump, and recovery phase places unique demands on the body and on the products worn in motion. In this context, soft goods are not passive layers or branding surfaces; they are active participants in performance. The way a garment stretches, compresses, breathes, or stabilizes can influence confidence, endurance, and precision in ways that are felt long before they are noticed.

Well-designed athletic soft goods regulate temperature without distraction, support muscles without restricting movement, and adapt across training, competition, and recovery. When these systems are thoughtfully engineered, athletes can focus fully on their sport. When they fall short, friction appears in the form of discomfort, distraction, or compromised performance. The difference often lies in details: patterning, material behavior under sweat and strain, seam placement, and how a product responds over time.

At Interwoven Design, we approach athletic soft goods as performance systems rather than isolated products. Our work blends material intelligence, ergonomic construction, and brand strategy to create apparel and wearable solutions that move with the body and evolve with the demands of sport. Whether designing for emerging athletic categories or established performance disciplines, we prioritize comfort, adaptability, and long-term wearability alongside visual identity and market relevance.

We collaborate with athletic brands, innovators, and performance-driven organizations who recognize that great design is built through deep understanding of the body in motion. Together, we design soft goods that support athletes where it matters most: in the moments of effort, focus, and flow that define sport.Interwoven Design is a design consultancy that is positioned at the intersection of soft goods and wearable technology, creating products that function with the body and offer comfort as well as the superb performance that arises through the innovative incorporation of rigid, often electronic and responsive elements. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for design news, multi-media recommendations, and to learn more about product design and development!

From Sketch to Shelf: The Soft Goods Industrial Design Process in 6 Steps

Bringing a product from an idea to reality is an exciting journey—one that blends creativity, technical expertise, and user-centered thinking. In the world of wearable technology, great design isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about crafting solutions that seamlessly integrate into people’s lives. From the first sketch to the final product on the shelf, every step in the industrial design process plays a crucial role in shaping a wearable that is functional, comfortable, and market-ready. There are a lot of ways to break down the design process, and they all have their uses: the double diamond, the design thinking cycle. Search ‘design process’ and you’ll find endless diagrams and breakdowns. In this Insight article, we’ll walk you through the key stages of industrial design, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how innovative products come to life.

Step 1: Research & Discovery

The journey of creating a standout product starts with diving deep into the world of research and discovery. This initial phase is all about truly understanding the problem at hand—getting to know the needs of the users, the latest trends in the market, and how competitors are shaping the landscape. By mapping out these elements, designers can pinpoint where opportunities for innovation lie, crafting solutions that stand out in a crowded market. This phase is about more than just solving a problem; it’s about creating something that resonates with users and is perfectly positioned to make an impact.

Interwoven SABER military exosuit — *The SABER Military Exosuit*

A key part of this research involves ethnographic studies and interviews with the target user community, which allow us to step into the shoes of the users. Through ethnography, we spend time in the real world with the people we’re designing for, understanding their habits, behaviors, and challenges. We did extensive research for our SABER Military Exosuit to understand the key tasks and body positions required of the soldiers who would be wearing the suit. This research was critical to understanding how to create a suit that would move effectively with the user. It’s a deeply immersive way of discovering what truly matters. Later, we’ll use these insights to develop testing protocols for our prototypes, ensuring that the design is not just functional, but also intuitive and user-friendly.

Step 2: Concept Development & Ideation

Once we’ve gathered our insights, it’s time to bring ideas to life through concept development and ideation. This stage is where creativity thrives, as designers explore different possibilities for form, function, and aesthetics. Sketching and early visualizations allow us to experiment with various design directions, refining the product’s overall look and feel. The goal is to create something that not only meets user needs but also resonates emotionally, balancing beauty with functionality. Sketching is a big part of every project we do at Interwoven Design, a great example being the Breg CrossRunner Knee Brace. We were open to many strategies for meeting the project requirements, and we sketched dozens of ideas before moving on to the prototyping stage. Every sketch brought us closer to finding the ideal design that would work both in concept and in reality.

Interwoven Sketch and prototype of the Breg Knee Brace — *A sketch and prototype for the Breg Knee Brace project by Interwoven Design Group.*

To refine our ideas further, we use mood boards, storyboards, and collaborative brainstorming sessions. Mood boards help convey the visual direction, pulling together textures, colors, and inspiration that guide the aesthetic choices. Storyboarding helps illustrate how users will interact with the product in real life, showcasing key moments in the user experience. Throughout this process, we collaborate closely with engineers, material scientists, and stakeholders to ensure feasibility. This interdisciplinary approach ensures the designs are not only innovative but also practical, considering technical limitations, material possibilities, and market needs from the outset. When working on our projects, which often involve collaborating with engineers, we find that integrating interdisciplinary teamwork from the outset helps refine concepts, making sure we’re not only dreaming big but also designing something that can be successful in the real world.

Step 3: Prototyping & Iteration

With the initial concepts solidified, the next step is to bring those ideas into the physical world through prototyping and iteration. This is where sketches and ideas begin to take shape in low fidelity mockups, allowing us to visualize proportions, details, and mechanics in a more tangible way. Whether it’s through 3D printing, foam models, or soft goods mockups, these prototypes give us the opportunity to test ideas early on, making it easier to spot potential issues with form or function before committing to more complex production processes. We create dozens—in some cases far more than dozens—of prototypes for every project. The Whitecloud Medical Utility Bag is a great example of this; we created a broad range of soft goods prototypes to experiment with how we could fit a specific set of tools and objects that nurses need at all times. Early prototyping is a crucial stage that allows us to keep iterating quickly and efficiently, staying agile throughout the design journey.

As prototypes are developed, user feedback becomes a vital component of the refinement process. Testing prototypes with real users provides invaluable insights into how the product feels, operates, and resonates in everyday use. Functional assessments help determine whether the design meets its intended purpose, from ease of use to durability. Based on this feedback, the design undergoes continuous refinement, adjusting features, ergonomics, or materials as needed. This iterative cycle ensures that the product evolves to better meet user needs and aligns with both aesthetic and functional goals before moving into the final stages of production.

Step 4: User Testing & Validation

Once the prototype is ready for real-world interaction, the next step is user testing and validation. At Interwoven Design, we consider user testing and validation to be an integral part of prototyping and ideating. User testing is crucial for ensuring that the design not only meets user expectations but also performs seamlessly in everyday use. By testing the product with a target group of users, designers gather valuable feedback on comfort, usability, and overall user experience. This hands-on testing helps identify any areas where the product may need adjustments—whether it’s improving ergonomics, simplifying functionality, or enhancing the user interface. In our Firefly workwear project, we had warehouse workers wear prototypes during their work day to observe the quality and durability of the jacket’s reflective coating. It’s all about making sure the design feels intuitive, comfortable, and effective in real-world scenarios.

Interwoven Firefly workwear jacket — *The Firefly workwear garment* *by Interwoven Design Group.*

Alongside user feedback, long-term wearability and durability are evaluated to ensure the product stands up over time. This involves rigorous testing to assess how the product holds up under everyday wear and tear, as well as ensuring it meets regulatory standards for safety and compliance. Based on the data collected, the design is refined to address any issues that arise, ensuring that it not only delights users but is also safe and reliable. This iterative process guarantees that the final product is both functionally sound and compliant, offering an exceptional experience that users can trust and enjoy over time.

Step 5: Technical Design & Sourcing

With a refined concept in hand, the next step is transitioning from idea to a manufacturable product. This phase focuses on engineering the design for production, ensuring that all aspects of the product can be realized efficiently and at scale. In this step, we generate all of the technical documentation to allow the manufacturer to understand every aspect of the design. In our Even Adaptive Lingerie project, we created additional technical design documentation to support the patent application for the custom clasp we designed.

Material sourcing is also important at this stage. The right materials must be chosen for both their functional properties—such as strength, flexibility, and weight—and their aesthetic qualities. Along with material considerations, wearability testing and durability assessments are conducted to guarantee that the product will stand up to everyday use while maintaining comfort and performance. These evaluations help refine the design, ensuring that it’s not only visually appealing but also reliable and practical in real-world conditions.

Collaborating with suppliers and manufacturers is a key part of this stage. Designers work closely with these partners to optimize production processes, ensuring that the design can be reproduced with consistency and efficiency. This includes refining techniques for assembly, tooling, and quality control, while also exploring opportunities to reduce costs or improve sustainability in the construction or in the manufacturing process. By maintaining an open dialogue with manufacturers and keeping an eye on potential production challenges, we can ensure that the design moves smoothly from the drawing board to the final product, ready for the market. This phase solidifies the design’s viability, ensuring it can be brought to life with precision and quality.

Step 6: Production & Launch

As the product nears completion, the focus shifts to the final stages of production and launch. This phase begins with finalizing manufacturing processes, ensuring that all production methods are optimized for scale and consistency. Quality control measures are put in place to maintain high standards throughout the production run, from material checks to final inspections. The goal is to ensure that each unit meets the exact specifications, preserving the integrity of the design and delivering a product that matches the vision set out at the beginning of the process.

Simultaneously, preparations are made for the product’s mass production, taking care to balance efficiency with design integrity. It’s essential that the product remains true to its initial concept, even as it moves into full-scale manufacturing. While this is happening, the marketing team works to build excitement for the launch, developing a compelling product narrative that connects emotionally with consumers. Product storytelling helps create a connection, communicating not just the features and benefits, but the values and story behind the design. This connection builds consumer trust and generates buzz, ensuring the product’s success in the market from day one.

Bringing it All Together

From the initial spark of inspiration to the final product launch, each stage of the industrial design process plays a critical role in creating wearable technology that not only looks good but works seamlessly in the lives of users. Every step—whether it’s research, prototyping, or technical design—helps shape a product that balances creativity, functionality, and user experience. A thoughtful, well-rounded design approach ensures that the product is not only technologically advanced but also user-friendly, making it easy for customers to integrate it into their daily lives with confidence and excitement.

At Interwoven Design, we believe that the best designs come from collaboration and a shared vision. We invite you to work with us to bring your ideas to life, whether you’re looking to refine an existing concept or develop an entirely new wearable tech solution. With our expert design and product development process, we’re here to guide you through every step, ensuring your product stands out in the market while meeting the highest standards of usability, functionality, and sustainability. Do you have a project you’d like to see come to life? Reach out!

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