Instruction Design

Challenge Components

• Niche market
• Safety Concerns
• Detailed instructions without overwhelm

Industry Research

There are several pillows designed for infants that, in theory, correct flat head syndrome. This made industry research much quicker for us. We found that all the pillows offer a unique shape and tend to focus on their creators. We also found that many of the instruction manuals for the pillows contained poor design.

Audience Research

The audience for an infant pillow is limited to expecting and new parents. These new parents want everything to go right for their little ones. This is a powerful motivator and one we used in our user manual design process. Additionally, women tend to make baby nursery choices, though new fathers do participate in countries like the USA.

Research as a Custom Instruction Manual Design Firm

A big part of the instruction design is communicating with the party on the other side of the page. We investigated how other instructions are delivered to new parents. Then we combined that knowledge with our extensive instructions design experience. This research allowed us to better frame the directions, so they were easier to understand.

Bonus Challenge

The significant challenge with this instruction manual design order was making sure that parents understood that the product was safe to use. It was not enough to simply add the relevant warnings. We needed to weave reassurance into each page so that the message sunk in even with frazzled new parent brains.

Brand Symbology

Tiny Years uses a straightforward, minimalist brand. We needed to incorporate the company’s brand colors of blue and white in the design process. The elegant simplicity made designing the imagery for the instructions straightforward as well. The manual design team was able to quickly incorporate the necessary pieces.

Design Inspiration

Our inspiration for the instruction manual design was the infants. We wanted to portray happy infants using this product. In turn, the children inspired us regarding the clean and simple aspects of the design. We wanted the parents to remember why they chose to buy the product every time they looked at the manual.

Element Decisions

Most of the element inclusion decisions came back to the pure, simple, and sweet feelings babies inspire in most adults. We wanted to affirm those feelings through the design of the instructions. Therefore, the team chose many adorable images of children for inclusion. These elements also helped keep the design simple.

Narrowing Down the Final Options

The instructions design team came up with several awesome concepts for this project. After ruling out those that didn’t quite meet brand standards, we still had several ideas. From there, we examined which options best conveyed the content of the instructions while sticking close to the Tiny Years brand.

The Deliverable

The Final Package:

• One complete custom instruction manual design
• Separate package design elements for reuse

The final design for the instructions featured a white booklet with blue accents and many pictures of young children. The instructions themselves were spaced appropriately throughout the book. Overall, everyone was pleased with how fresh the final design was. We look forward to working with Tiny Years again if the company expands.