Requirements:

• Business, Sales, or Marketing background with 7+ years experience
• Design, Engineering, or Business degree preferred
• Experience working in a product development consultancy preferred
• Strong inter-personal and organizational skills
• Passion for speaking about an effective, user-centered design and development process
• Holistic understanding of Design Research, Industrial Design, and Engineering activities
• Industry knowledge of manufacturing techniques and practices
• Strategic thinking skills
• Ability to quickly craft project outlines, budgets, and proposals based on needs and expectations of a diverse range of clients and businesses
• Proven track record working with companies ranging in size and complexity (small companies-Fortune 500)
• Consistent track record of meeting and exceeding sales revenue objectives
• Experience working in a multi-disciplinary, creative environment
• An entrepreneurial spirit
• Achieve revenue and business development activity targets
• Hunt for new business opportunities and farm existing clients for additional business
• Communicate the value proposition of Visualize Inc’s design process and services to current and prospective clients
• Identify and respond to RFP’s and RFQ’s with a demonstrated understanding of the customer’s needs and Visualize Inc’s capabilities

Submit your resume »

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We’ve found that for technology to truly be smart, it should first be sensitive. We have a lot of familiarity with these technologies and we’re finding new applications every day. In the case of the common kitchen garbage disposal, smarter means safer too. We’ve been thinking hard about how to leverage sensing technology in this common kitchen appliance and have come up with what we think are some great ideas.

Spoon-saving inductive sensing

We’ve all done it. We’ve all flipped on the garbage disposal only to hear the very unhappy sound of a spoon, fork or other kitchenware getting mercilessly flogged in those unforgiving teeth. Usually the disposal is none worse for wear, but the spoon has battle scars. None of us want to throw out a $4 spoon, so why not use inductive sensing to detect non-food items? That way we can keep the disposal from coming on in the first place when there’s something in there that doesn’t belong. Both visual and auditory cues could let you know that hey, there’s a spoon in there.

A safer, two-handed touch switch

Using light switches for disposals pose a handful of issues. Firstly, they’re almost never labeled. Is that the disposal or the sink light? Secondly, do you really want to flip a 110v switch with wet hands? How safe is that? Also, if you’re adding a disposal system to your existing sink, you’re going to need an electrician to install that switch. What if there’s no power in that wall? Our approach is much simpler — a pair of touch sensors under the counter lip. Not only are your hands out of danger, there’s no confusing it for the sink light. What’s more, these low-voltage switches are plug-and-play, so no electrician required.

Why did it happen?
Because of Visualize’s continued growth in the Chicago area. We needed to add more resources in this office.

How much space is it?
2,800 sq ft

What are you doing with the new space?
We’ve added additional Electrical Engineering lab capabilities and we will be increasing our prototyping capabilities later this year.

How is it a good thing for our clients?
The expansion allows us additional development resources and capabilities for our local clients. We have much better client meeting facilities and a dedicated brainstorming area.

You can find location and contact information for all our Visualize studios by visiting our Contact page.

You may have forgotten about us, but we haven’t forgotten you. Here’s three more reasons to get re-acquainted.

1. People

Our staff has grown exponentially in the last 18 months, and not just in numbers. We’ve grown in both experience and effectiveness. We’ve added some of the best embedded computing experts in the industry. We’ve hired veteran industrial designers with 20+ years of experience. We’ve recruited an accredited Design Researcher and Human Factors specialist. We even have our own Brandgineer and user interface expert. With this expanded team we have the capability of providing the comprehensive product development services your projects require.

2. Presence

We’ve added two new studios — one in Minneapolis, one in Milwaukee — to extend our services beyond Chicago and Madison. We develop cutting edge technology every day, but we don’t want technology like email and web meetings to replace real face time with our clients locally. Each studio is structured to provide its clients with local access to our full suite of our core competencies. When huge help is needed, we’re also able to combine resources across all four studios.

3. Process

We’ve perfected a no-nonsense approach to product development. We call it “uncomplexification.” This approach includes how we quote your projects. Simply put, you’re going to know up front exactly what we’re doing for you, when it will be finished, and how much it’s going to cost. Done. The End. No “estimates.” No time-and-materials contracts that wind up over budget. We’ve streamlined our internal development processes as well. We’d wager that your product will be faster to market, and faster to revenue, than you’ve ever experienced with other firms or even your internal resources. That’s our promise to you and we look forward to keeping it. Give us a go.

_{*Offer for new and returning customers. Discounts are as follows: $25,000 off a project of $50,000+, 25% off a project of $25,000+, 10% off a project of $10,000+. Offer good through 11:59 p.m. CST, June 15, 2010}

Using goggles to simulate vision problems like cataracts, and gloves with tape to simulate arthritis, stiffness, and loss of touch sensitivity, participants were given simple tasks such as opening small packages, or sending a text message from a mobile phone. The purpose of these experiential prototyping exercises was to show ways to foster empathy in designers and engineers. If we better understand what it’s actually like to have these common impairments, that can inform our design choices for the better. If you would like Matt to blur your vision or tape up your fingers (or take advantage of Visualize’s other research capabilities) contact him at mzabel@visual-ii.com.

Photos by Liqing Zhou

The Kitchen & Bath Industry Show runs April 14-18 in Chicago. To see the full list of entries and judges, visit the KBIS website.

We here at Visualize could never (officially) encourage the bribery of a contest official, but we do know that Rich is very fond of chocolate chip cookies …and cash.

We are capable of anything
Visualize is one of the only firms anywhere that can truly deliver start-to-finish, comprehensive product development. From blue-sky concepts, to top-secret “skunkworks” R&D projects, all the way through to manufacturing, there’s no part of the product development process that we can’t execute. If you’re the sort that needs a list, here you go:

• End-to-end product development
• Project rescue
• “Skunkworks”-style deep technology research and development
• Design research
• Market research
• Human factors research
• User experience research
• Industrial design
• Mechanical engineering
• Electrical engineering
• User interface design
• Software development
• Firmware development
• Manufacturing make-ready / management

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When we first started exploring the idea of what a digital kitchen could be, we created an all-in-one concept that brought cutting boards into the future. We loved it, but for us it failed a critical test: would people really use it? So we rethought the real life experience of cooking and asked ourselves, “How do we bring a computer into the kitchen in a useful way?”

A digital media hub just for the kitchen

Laptops and netbooks are ill-suited to the wet and wild world of cooking, so we imagined a digital media experience that’s up off the countertop. If you have clean hands, then a touchscreen interface is ideal, so our pedestal-mounted tablet uses capacitive touch to access shared recipes, watch my favorite cooking show, or even look up nutritional info. But what if you could also click along while your hands are covered in flour and raw egg?

The dishwasher-safe remote

Sealed in grippy, durable rubber, the remote controls every function of the media hub while being impervious to food splatter and even submersion. The powerful magnet in its base means I can attach it to a lanyard, the fridge door, or dock it at the base of the media hub (where it also recharges its batteries). Now I can cook along with my favorite cooking show and pause the action while I chop onions. None of this “here’s one I prepared earlier” stuff.

A suite of smart tools

Giving kitchen tools the power to measure and communicate with the hub and each other means task by task guidance. Whether it’s preparing a new recipe from your favorite website or counting calories for a nutrition program, knowing precisely what your food weighs and how much of it there is has a lot of advantages. Use the barcode scanner on the media hub to identify pre-packaged ingredients, empty half the bag onto the cutting board and know exactly how many calories you’ve portioned out for yourself. Baking bread from a friend’s recipe? The hub can pre-heat your oven. Need to know if that chicken breast is cooked all the way through? The smart thermometer gives you both the current and the target temperature. The possibilities for both precision and automation are almost endless — all while supporting the fun of cooking.

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When Koss approached us with the CC01 adjustable earbud project, they’d been working with another product development firm. Koss had a number of concerns about design and manufacturability of the concepts they’d received. Those concerns were well founded. We loved the idea of earbuds that adjust specifically to their user’s ears, but the actual mechanical designs weren’t feasible. We wanted to make this great concept into a reality. It didn’t matter to us that it wasn’t our idea — we loved the challenge of actually delivering them to market.

Our designers and engineers were able to take the raw concept and design a set of earbuds that are truly one size fits all. We evolved them into a product that was not only manufacturable but also delivered the purity of sound that audiophiles expect from Koss.

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Where our expertise really came to bear on this project was in breaking the problem down. How do we solve for so many variables at once? How do we collect the data in a way that isn’t cumbersome to the doctor or the patient? Beyond collection, how do we make sense of weights, motion, shifts in position, etc., so that the data is useful?

We found that all of those questions were answered elegantly by putting the right technology in the right package. By leveraging the wireless internet technology most people already have in their homes, we solve data gathering and ease of integration in one step. By employing efficient battery management, the sensors not only talk to each other wirelessly, but don’t require an outlet for power. For most patients, it’s a matter of placing a sensor on each corner of the bed and then forgetting about them.