How (and When) to Make Hardware Design Changes in Released Products

Abstract

Occasionally, perhaps more often than we’d like to admit, less-than-optimal product designs are released to the public and result in usability problems. There are several ways this can happen such as obtaining vendor products, expedited time to market, unforeseeable misuse, etc. The way to address field issues such as these is to develop a solution that solves the problem and is economically feasible to implement. This paper describes the use of cost-benefit analysis and provides guidelines to minimize solution-development costs in order to increase the probability that the solution can be implemented efficiently.