The Critical Essential: Dexterity Testing Toys
There are some factors in the success and longevity of toy products and brands which are so overwhelmingly fundamental, that it is pure folly to ignore them.
One of these factors is matching the functionality of the toy to the dexterity capability of the target age group.
This is not difficult to test (at least not for those of us who do this kind of thing for a living!), yet we find that most often toy companies chuck their products at the wall without performing even rudimentary tests to see whether the target audience can even perform the functionality of the toy.
If the target audience can’t even use the toy because it’s too difficult, fiddly, requires more fine motor skills than they have, or other reasons, then clearly the chances of creating positive word of mouth, cross selling within the range, and longer term brand committment are significantly reduced.
And as it costs somewhere between a few $hundred thousand upto $millions to launch new toy product ranges it’s entirely ridiculous that this basic functionality measure isn’t tested routinely and systematically across the industry.
For sure there are a few R&D souls out there who test with their kids, and the friends of their kids, and frankly, that’s better than nothing…but leaving this in the hands of those with a vested interest/emotional commitment to a brand is again hardly a prudent way to reduce the risk of launch failure / maximise success.
Our Toy playtesting service is guaranteed to measure dexterity factors and deliver meaningful, practical insight to spot problems, provide insight/guidance on tweaks to be made or to rubber stamp something that is really going to do the business…please feel free to get in touch if we can help.
