Case study
Our work for Logitech involving the redesign of the Mouseman PC mouse helped re-establish the company’s market position ahead of fierce international competition.
Logitech had established a strong reputation for high-quality, well-engineered computer input devices, priced at the top of the market range. Yet in 1998 the company found it increasingly difficult to retain its share of the PC mouse market as a result of growing competition and decreasing product differentiation. Logitech concluded that it had to communicate product quality through enhanced design, and thereby regain market dominance.
Logitech had already realised that the use of soft-touch technology in its products would achieve ‘hands-on’ differentiation, but how to achieve this?
The soft-touch mouse
Applying concepts originally revealed by our research into the toothbrush industry, we worked with Logitech to develop the soft-touch mouse. In the case of a toothbrush, the use of soft-touch, thermoplastic rubber had transformed a simple, cheap product into a highly stylised, desirable item which commanded a premium price for little increase in manufacturing cost. For Logitech, we used multi-shot injection moulding, combined with a new, specially developed thermoplastic derivative, to create a highly innovative two-piece design, which incorporated soft-touch panels onto a re-stylised mouse.
Named the Mouseman, the redesigned mouse became the cornerstone of the Logitech mouse range and helped re-establish the company’s market position, placing it ahead of fierce international competition.
PilotMouse
Following this success, we continued to work with Logitech on another pioneering mouse design, taking the concepts developed for the Mouseman to new levels of technical and design expertise, while at the same time achieving significant cost savings over the original product.
The result, the PilotMouse, was an impressive demonstration of applied technology – a one-piece, two-shot moulding – that amalgamated body and buttons into one component. The flexibility of the thermoplastic allowed the design of the integral buttons; it also allowed us to mould the Logitech logo into the surface panel at virtually no extra cost, saving on secondary assembly and printing. The finished prototype was a significant departure, both visually and technically, from current low-end mouse designs. A limited edition PilotMouse, incorporating the names of the strategic partners (Logitech, Sagentia, Advanced Elastomer Systems and Sifam Moulded Products) was produced in recognition of the strength of the collaboration. The materials developed and insights gained are now being used in other commercially produced Logitech product lines.