Designing Defense Tech
The question at the center of the conversation: how do you design products that perform quickly in harsh conditions when lives are at stake?
The best defense products we heard about at a recent panel weren't the most complex. They met the users' requirements, were tested in the real world, and kept simple.
In late October, Sigma Design's Piet Ganzer (VP of Engineering) and Andy Boyes (Director of Customer Solutions) joined a panel on design considerations for defense tech products. It was part of the UW Foster School of Business × Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition (PNDC) Defense Technology Program, held October 27–29 on the UW Seattle campus. They were joined by Patrick Barrett, Owner of Sherpa Design, and moderated by Chris Groves, Co-Founding General Partner at FirstWatch Partners.
The conversation centered around the question, "How do you design products that perform quickly in harsh conditions when lives are at stake?" Five themes kept coming up:
1. Understand the user, and build only what they need
Great design starts with the product users and the requirements they have actually given you. It is tempting to add features because they are clever, but a feature nobody requested adds cost and complexity without adding value for the user. Translating what warfighters and program offices need into clear requirements is where the work begins.
2. Test early and often, in real-world conditions
A product made for harsh environments has to be proven in them. Testing early and repeatedly in real-world conditions reveals problems early while the design can still change.
3. Design for the supply chain from day one
Supply chain resilience belongs in the design phase, not as a fix applied during production. Choosing components that are easy to procure and scale keeps a product buildable when parts get scarce and demand increases.
4. Stay modular and adaptable
Technology and threats keep evolving, so products need to evolve with them. A modular design keeps options open. You can swap components and payloads quickly, and the same platform can serve dual-use purposes without starting over.
5. Simple, clever solutions are winning
Throughout the discussion, simple, clever approaches beat expensive, complex ones. Simpler designs tend to be cheaper to build, easier to produce at scale, and faster to put in front of users.
Where defense and commercial requirements overlap
The panel also looked at dual-use: thinking deliberately about where defense and commercial requirements overlap, and where they need to diverge. Walking that line right lets teams reuse what they can and design specifically for what they can't.
Thank you
Thank you to James Zheng and Todd J. Woods for putting together a great program and bringing this group together. Thanks also to Chris Groves for leading the discussion, and to Patrick Barrett and Sherpa Design for their perspective. We enjoyed the different viewpoints around the table and would highly recommend the program to anyone working in defense and dual-use technology.
If you're developing a product for defense or dual-use markets, we'd love to talk.
