Why do products fail in the market?
Most product failures trace back to a small number of causes: the problem was not urgent enough, the product did not work well enough, the business model did not support a viable price point, or the product reached market too late.
Sustainability and social factors are increasingly causing market failures too, as regulation tightens and consumer expectations rise. Products that pass commercial scrutiny but fail on environmental or social grounds face growing reputational, regulatory, and procurement risk. Design Compass is designed to surface these risks before you commit to production, not after.
The 19-segment framework is structured specifically to address the full range of failure modes: the inner ring covers commercial risk, the middle ring covers environmental risk, and the outer ring covers social and reputational risk. Scoring your idea honestly across all three gives you an early warning system for the problems most likely to cause failure.
